Comments on: Distorted Pictures

By: kazakhstan.neweurasia.net » Overview of Kazakhstan Blogosphere

kazakhstan.neweurasia.net » Overview of Kazakhstan Blogosphere — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 15:23:03 +0000

[...] Kazis Togubaev calls the bloody clashes between the police and the residents of the Shanyrak district of Almaty “Shanyrak Mine that Imangali Tasmaganbetov (Almaty city mayor) put under the the Chair of the OSCE Chairmanship”. As reported on Neweurasia before (RUS), the authorities have a long-standing conflict with the residents of the poorest districts of Almaty on their allegedly illegal settlement. It’s hard to believe that these pictures of the clashes, where one policeman was burned to death and people were shot at with rubber bullets (which was officially denied), are made in the same city of New York Times’ article on the changing face of Almaty. Such is the Western reporting on Central Asia, says Nathan. The Kazakh reporting is that 15 policemen were hospitalized, but it is uknown how many residents of Shanyrak were, say people in Almaty Livejournal community. Bloggers of KUB write that when the people living in those districts bought the land, they were told that they have to bribe to do it, and the authorities at all levels were involved. 35 residents of Bakay did sue and win in the first instance court, but then the prosecutor’s office interfered. [...]

By: Laurence

Laurence — Sun, 09 Jul 2006 09:46:57 +0000

Nathan, I’ve received this clarification from Eric Freedman about his Turkmenistan report:

Actually, I got no grant for that research project. It was a content analysis-based study done from the comfort of the Michigan State campus

By: Peter

Peter — Wed, 05 Jul 2006 01:35:39 +0000

The limitations of reporting on Turkmenistan are easy enough to intuit, so reliance on local journalists is not much of an option. If anything, such coverage as comes from people on the ground often tends to be partial and/or exaggerated. Two recurrent sources that I have occasionally used for my blog are Russian newspaper Vremya Novostei and the German radio station Deutsche Welle’s Russian service. The primary appeal of these sources is that the content is rarely available in English-language media and touches on a wider range of issues than the relatively limited scope of human rights concerns. Not that this is not a crucial topic, but its domination of the Turkmen news agenda gives a fundamentally one-dimensional understanding of the challenges that people in the country must deal with on a daily basis. Yet there are some problems with even this limited reporting that is done about the country from journalists with supposed connections on the inside.
Coverage by Vremya Novostei is usually from Moscow-based journalist Arkady Dubnov, who often claims to base his sensational stories upon the testimony of Turkmen officials and citizens. However, his association with former deputy Prime Minister Boris Shikhmuradov, who was jailed in 2003 on the charge of having allegedly participated in an assassination attempt on President Saparmurat Niyazov, has severely compromised his credibility. Meanwhile, Deutsche Welle is similarly liberal in its policy of basing its stories on unconfirmed, and often unconfirmable, sources. As compelling as the stories sound, the journalistic style is frequently of a type that would be accepted by few credible Western media organisations. Again though, this merely throws up the Catch-22 that any responsible correspondent wishing to deal in credible journalism confronts.
One of the consequences that speaking to journalists can carry was neatly illustrated by the recent arrest of human rights workers in Ashgabat. Among the reasons offered for the detention of Annakurban Amanklychev, one of the suspects in question, was that he met with BBC correspondent Lucy Ash, from who he is also accused of receiving a sum of $600. Ash has to date failed to return an e-mail from me requesting some insight into this accusation, but in a conversation with her researcher on the Assignment programme I was told that every possible provision had been taken to avoid this very type of detection. This caution and the relatively high profile of these latest victims of political targeting notwithstanding, safety cannot be guaranteed.
Again though, this may be only part of a greater problem. It is easy to be accused of cynicism in questioning the motivations of human rights and advocacy organisations, who often provide the sparse news items we rely on, but it is an often noted fact that these organisations have their own agendas based on NGO politics instead of the interests of the people that they should represent. I should specify that I am playing the devil’s advocate in saying this, but the general idea reflects some of my misgivings. Achievements such as apparently successful bid to thwart the revocation of the EU’s trade embargo on Turkmenistan, as reported in Nezavisimaya Gazeta on Tuesday, show that concerted campaigns can yield some results. Yet, even in this seemingly positive situation there is cause to fear that certain political ends may come to outweigh the essential benefits that such activities may be meant to accrue for the interested countries. This, again, is a symptom of foreigners and exiled activists dominating the agenda.
Sadly, there are no obvious solutions that present themselves in the face of these problems. A start, though, would be to understand that the voices we seem keen to hear and listen to will not necessarily say the things we expect of them. The quality and content of the limited testimony that comes from countries like Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan should challenge and nuance our preconceived notions rather than compounding them.

By: Major John

Major John — Tue, 04 Jul 2006 23:20:04 +0000

I rather like to think it is more in my interest to come to this blog, especially this blog, and others like publispundit, etc., to find out what is going on in Central Asia. Yes, I wish the legacy media did more to let us all know what is going on in your AOI – but you all do a fine job, thanks very much.

By: Laurence

Laurence — Tue, 04 Jul 2006 02:36:00 +0000

Nathan, Eric Freedman was a Fulbright Scholar in Tashkent, teaaching journalism at the State University of World Languages the year before I went to Uzbekistan. He did a good job of briefing me before my trip, and was helpful to me while I was there, providing emailed advice and so forth. I guess he got a grant from someone to do his research–it would be interesting to see if we now get a torrent of anti-Turkmenistan news stories, NGO reports, and so on. I guess we can track Turkmen news on Eurasianet to get some idea of the trend…