- Population: 15,469,000
- Internet users: 300,000 (2003)
- Average charge for 20 hours of connection: 27 euros
- DAI*: 0.41
- Situation**: difficult
The media and the Internet are all under pressure from the government. Censoring online publications has become very important for the authorities since the revelation via the Internet of many scandals. For example, www.eurasia.org.ru published the first report, in 2000, on "Kazakhgate" - corruption involving President Nursultan Nazarbayev which is still in the news. Censorship of opposition websites is now routine and arbitrary.
A restrictive law
A May 2001 amendment to the media law put online publications on the same legal footing as the traditional media, except that websites were not obliged to register with the culture ministry. Kazakh journalist Olga Artamonova says the amendment is "a unique case of legitimising control of the Internet." The media is under tight legal restrictions, she says, especially where libel is concerned, and the extension of them to online activity is logical. But the new law would seem difficult to enforce, since half of Kazakh websites are run from abroad, making it much harder to block access to a troublesome website than to shut down a local newspaper.
Access to opposition publications systematically blocked
The national security committee ordered the state telecom firm Kazakhtelekom in 2003 to block access to a dozen websites it said were "destructive" (a threat to the state). They either supported the opposition or provided impartial news. Among sites currently filtered by Kazakhtelekom and private operators Nursat (50 per cent state-owned) and Astel are www.kub.kz, www.respublica.kz, www.zhakiyanov.info, www.ablyazov.info, www.vybordvk.teo.ru, www.globe.kz and www.khabar.us. www.eurasia.org.ru, which was not on the list, was also blocked. It is run by supporters of former prime minister Akezhan Kazhegeldin, who heads the main opposition party.
Internet filtering is done with software called Bolat," which Kazakhtelekom, Nursat and Astel have installed and which the authorities encourage other ISPs to use. The easiest way round this censorship is to use anonymizers, which are proxies accessible on the Web, with www.anonsurf.de and http://webwarper.net the most popular ones.
Links
- The Kazakh service of Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty - www.rferl.org/featuresarchive/country/kazakhstan.html
- Site of the GIPI (Global Internet Policy Initiative) for Kazakstan - www.internews.kz/eng/gipi/index.htm
- The news site Eurasianet - www.eurasianet.org
- The International Public Foundation for Protection of Freedom of Speech, Adil soz - www.adilsoz.kz/english/index.htm
- The Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights and Rule of Law - www.bureau.kz/index_eng.shtml
- News site - www.kub.kz/hot.php
* The DAI (Digital Access Index) has been devised by the International Telecommunications Union to measure the access of a country's inhabitants to information and communication technology. It ranges from 0 (none at all) to 1 (complete access).
** Assessment of the situation in each country (good, middling, difficult, serious) is based on murders, imprisonment or harassment of cyber-dissidents or journalists, censorship of news sites, existence of independent news sites, existence of independent ISPs and deliberately high connection charges.
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