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Lawyer Arkady BUKH:     |
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ADVISOR TO NAZARBAYEV TO LOBBY AMENDMENTS TO MEDIA LAW Astana. July 12. Interfax-Kazakhstan - Kazakhstan's Law on Mass Media must be urgently brought in compliance with international standards, said Presidential Adviser for Political Affairs Yermukhamet Yertysbayev.
"I am advocating amendments to Kazakh legislation on media about decriminalization of defamation and libel offences and introduce other international standards to give journalists a chance to work at another level," Yertysbaev told reporters on Thursday in Astana.
Later the same day at the international conference "International Standards of Mass Media and National Legislation," Yertysbayev advised the OSCE Centre in Astana and the Fund for Protection of Freedom of Speech Adil Soz to move from futile discussion of the problem to real actions.
"Kazakhstan has about 40,000 journalists. (...) Why don't you collect their signatures to make an open letter to the President and Parliament. We may hold hundreds of such conferences, but it will make no difference. We need real actions. We need to meet the commitments that we made," said the presidential adviser.
"Over the past 5 years there was not a slightest change in reforming the law on media," he said.
Yertysbaev acknowledged that introducing international media standards has many opponents in Kazakhstan.
"I vow as an advisor to the President to inform the President once again about the need to meet our obligations to the OSCE and targets stipulated in the national plan for 2009-2011 to improve media legislation in line with international legal instruments on human rights, " he said. |
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