Kazakh media bill sparks row

Kazakh journalists and public figures - including President Nursultan Nazarbayev's daughter Dariga - have spoken out against a controversial bill to regulate the country's media.

One should not tolerate it when somebody urges sabotage and disorder President Nursultan Nazarbayev

The legislation, which took more than two years to draft, is due to be debated by the lower house of parliament on Wednesday.

It has also been criticised by journalists in Russia and some of Kazakhstan's Central Asian neighbours.

Dariga Nazarbayeva, the president's eldest daughter, heads the country's largest media conglomerate Khabar, as well as the Kazakh Congress of Journalists.

Sex censorship

She opposes the bill's proposed ban on displaying products which "largely or systematically provoke interest in sex".

Ms Nazarbayeva said many great film classics included sexual and erotic content.

The authorities are using this bill to regain control over the media Internews-Kazakhstan chief Oleg Katsiyev

"Show business, video clips and commercials are mainly based on provoking this basic instinct," she said.

Ms Nazarbayeva chairs the political party Asar, founded in October, which wants to turn Kazakhstan into a "competitive democratic state where old values and traditions will be respected".

There has been widespread speculation that Ms Nazarbayeva might stand in the presidential election set for 2006, although she has dismissed such talk.

Tighter rules

The new law aims to increase the requirements media outlets and journalists need to fulfil to obtain registration from the government.

It also increases the number of reasons registration can be refused and regulates the number of programmes that must be broadcast in the Kazakh language.

Kazakh non-governmental organisations, such as the Adil Soz foundation, which campaigns for press freedom, and the Internews-Kazakhstan organisation, boycotted a parliamentary working group in protest at the bill.

"The bill has turned out to be reactionary," Internews-Kazakhstan chief Oleg Katsiyev told a news conference in Almaty.

"The document that the parliament will pass in many ways violates the pact on civil and political freedoms," he said.

"The authorities are using this bill to regain control over the media."

Concern at the impact of the measures has also been voiced by press freedom organisations such as Reporters Without Borders.

Need for 'stability'

The Moscow-based Glasnost Protection Foundation has urged President Nazarbayev to review the bill, saying it could "inflict irreparable damage on Kazakhstan's reputation as a developing demoracy".

Kazakh journalists and colleagues from Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Russia jointly urged MPs to reject the law.

A journalists' petition called on MPs to choose between democratic forces "and those leading the country to totalitarianism".

But President Nazarbayev has strongly backed the measure, arguing that stability is the country's most important issue.

"Some newspapers and electronic media provide hopeless information, saying everything is bad," he told Kazakhstanskaya Pravda.

"I think this should be stopped by the law. It makes no difference whether it is a domestic media source or a foreign one.

"One should not tolerate it when somebody urges sabotage and disorder."

BBC Monitoring, based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.