Reporters Without Borders is very worried by the desire being expressed by Kyrgyzstan’s parliamentarians to assert their control over the media and, in particular, by the impact of a law banning direct retransmission of all foreign TV stations in the run-up to the 30 October presidential election.

“A series of repressive measures are dashing hopes that Kyrgyzstan would be the post-Soviet world’s first parliamentary democracy,” Reporters Without Borders said. “The latest measure, more muddle-headed than previous ones, marks the return of prior censorship. Even if applicable only to foreign broadcasts received in Kyrgyzstan, it opens a vast breach in freedom of information.

“Under the pretext of combating foreign interference, parliament is restricting the right of Kyrgyz citizens to diverse news and information, and is creating unprecedented chaos on the airwaves and TV screens. With two and a half weeks to go to the elections, the authorities must scrap this unworkable, unfair and dangerous law.”

Implementation of the law “On the election of the president and members of parliament of the Kyrgyz Republic,” adopted on 30 June, has completely disrupted retransmission of foreign radio and TV stations for the past two weeks. TV broadcasts have been repeatedly interrupted, some radio stations have had to change frequencies, programmes have been jammed or replaced by “tasteful” images, or broadcasts have been stopped altogether.

Article 22 § 16 of the law stipulates that retransmission of foreign broadcasts must be delayed in order to ensure compliance with another provision in the same paragraph banning retransmission of any electoral propaganda and any content in the foreign broadcast media “attacking the honour, dignity and reputation of candidates.” Local broadcasters and cable TV companies are held responsible for any violations.

Recent proposed amendments rescinding or imposing a moratorium on this provision have resulted in stormy debates but have not been adopted. Although the debate is not yet over, the provision took effect on 29 September and is being implemented in utterly chaotic manner.

Foreign TV station blackout

The operators that retransmit foreign broadcasts, including the Russian TV stations that are very popular in Kyrgyzstan, are obliged to go through them with a fine-tooth comb in order to eliminate any problematic content before retransmission. But what are the acceptable limits for criticism of candidates? Who is in charge of editing? The law does not say, which leaves the politicians and judges too much leeway in their interpretation. So the operators play safe by opting for blanket censorship.

The lack of clear directives is not the only problem. The companies that retransmit foreign TV stations do not have the necessary recording and monitoring equipment. And in most cases, the contracts linking them with foreign content producers forbid any modification of content.

As a result, they have ended up just suspending most foreign TV stations for the entire election campaign. Those affected include the BBC, CNN, Euronews, the Russian news station RBK and the independent Central Asian station K+. The very popular Russian TV station 1 Kanal reached a compromise with the Kyrgyz authorities and is itself delaying retransmission to Kyrgyzstan by an hour.

“The implementation of this law is a clear violation of the public’s right to information,” Reporters Without Borders said. “There is no need to stress the absurd and desperate aspect of this attempt to combat ‘interference by foreign media in the country’s sovereign news space.’ More serious is its reintroduction of official censorship, previously seen as a thing of the past since the overthrow of Kurmanbek Bakiyev’s autocratic regime in April 2010.”

One of the leading instigators of this article, Ata-Meken party leader Omurbek Tekebayev, made his intentions clear in a statement to a parliamentary commission on 27 September. “There must be censorship in Kyrgyzstan,” he said. “And it is the editor in chief of every media who must act as censor on behalf of the state.”

Tekebayev added: “If a local media does not have a specialist in charge of monitoring and vetting content, then that media has no right to exist. Because this specialist is the editor in chief.” While recognizing the impossibility of controlling the online versions of foreign media, Tekebayev insisted the Kyrgyz media would be held responsible for the problematic content to which they provided links.

5 Kanal rivalry

The foreign media are unfortunately not the only ones that Kyrgyzstan’s parliamentarians want to control. One of the country’s most popular TV stations, 5 Kanal, is at the centre of a battle for the appropriation of its media resources. Modern and well-equipped, it belonged to former President Bakiyev’s family and was nationalized after his overthrow. Since then it has been turned into a relatively independent public TV station.

Against President Roza Otunbayeva’s advice, parliamentarians confirmed their intention on 22 September to turn 5 Kanal into a parliamentary TV station although they lack the funds to run it and their sessions are not long enough to fill the station’s broadcast time. But at least they would be rid of its often critical coverage of their activities, which has already resulted in the station losing its parliamentary accreditation.

Parliamentary speaker Akhmatbek Keldibekov took another step towards the station’s politicization by publicly calling for its transfer to be speeded up, apparently because he cannot wait for it to start criticizing President Otunbayeva.

This approach to freedom of expression is not new, as parliament already recommended blocking access to the Central Asian independent news website Fergananews.com. But the election campaign has prompted much more criticism of the media from the political elite in recent weeks.

The Central Electoral Commission also caused an outcry at the end of July by refusing to accredit 11 online news agencies to cover the elections and disseminate election propaganda on the grounds that online media were not explicitly included in the legal definition of “mass media.”