OSCE media freedom representative calls on Kyrgyzstan to address 'safety crisis' of free press
VIENNA, 23 December 2009 - The OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, Miklos Haraszti, urged Kyrgyz authorities today to take resolute steps to halt the intimidation of the free press following recent acts of violence against journalists, including the killing of Gennady Pavlyuk in Kazakhstan.
"Violence against journalists has risen further in the last months. The Kyrgyz Government must publicly acknowledge the safety crisis of Kyrgyzstan's press and stop treating it as 'crime as usual'," Haraszti said in a letter to Kyrgyz Foreign Minister Kadyrbek Sarbaev.
"Anti-media violence reaches far beyond the persons attacked; it aims to impose censorship on the whole of the free press. This is why fighting violent intimidation of the media is crucial for compliance with OSCE media freedom commitments."
Haraszti also called upon Kyrgyzstan to help law enforcement agencies in the neighbouring Republic of Kazakhstan to investigate the killing of Gennady Pavlyuk, the director of Kyrgyzstan's Russian-language Bely Parokhod online newspaper.
On 16 December, Pavlyuk was thrown out of a window of a multi-storey apartment building in the Kazakh city of Almaty. His hands and feet were bound with tape. Pavlyuk died of his wounds on 22 December.
Pavlyuk, who is known under the pen name Ibragim Rustambek, is the second journalist from Kyrgyzstan to have been attacked in the past week.
The other cases Haraszti referred to in his letter to Sarbaev include that of Aleksandr Yevgrafov, a correspondent for the Russian BaltInfo news agency, who was detained and assaulted in Bishkek on 16 December by two men wearing police uniforms.
On 15 December, an automatic rifle bullet and threatening notes were delivered to the Osh Shamy newspaper in Osh. Its deputy chief editor, Kubanychbek Joldoshev, was beaten up by three unidentified assailants while returning home at night last month. Other journalists working in Kyrgyzstan have reported receiving anonymous threats.
Haraszti pointed out to Sarbaev that, in addition to the cases mentioned in his letter, two other Kyrgyz journalists were murdered and an additional seven were assaulted this year. None of these incidents has been solved.
"As international experience demonstrates, impunity leads to further violence," Haraszti said.
Haraszti expressed his sympathies to the family and co-workers of Pavlyuk.