In a letter sent to President Nursultan Nazarbayev, WAN-IFRA and the World Editors Forum called the 60 million Kazakh tenge (US $400,000) fine "not only draconian" but possibly politically motivated.
"The newspaper has suffered harassment by the authorities for many years for its coverage of government policies, human rights abuses and corruption,"
The letter said. "Furthermore, the distribution ban restricts the ability of the newspaper, which is currently only able to publish online, to generate revenue to pay the damages."
Earlier this month, an appeals court in Almaty upheld a ban on Respublika¹s distribution that was imposed in February. The ban will remain in place until the newspaper pays the damage award to BTA Bank, which claimed an article published in March 2009 led clients to withdraw funds. The newspaper maintains that the article was true and that the issue had been reported elsewhere.
The letter called on the President to ensure that Respublika be permitted to publish and distribute freely and that the damage award be overturned.
Kazakhstan is the current chair of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and has pledged to amend Kazakhstan’s repressive media laws and bring them up to international standards. The harassment of Respublika contravenes the basic principles of the OSCE.
The full letter can be read at http://www.wan-press.org/article18451.html
More WAN-IFRA press freedom protests can be found at http://www.wan-press.org/pfreedom/rubriques.php?id=304
