One of Kazakhstan's few remaining independent newspapers, the weekly Assandi Times, has been ordered to close by a court in Almaty, the country's largest city.
Yesterday (21 April), the court ruled that the paper, which has a national circulation of about 7,500, should cease publication because it was deemed to be part of Respublika, a newspaper banned in December 2012.
Respublika and its affiliates were shut down after various courts decided that they constituted a single media entity and that they had incited social discord and called for the violent overthrow of the government led by President Nursultan Nazarbayev.
The prosecutor argued that several journalists who had worked for Respublika now work for the Assandi Times, that the paper's editorial board has several members in common with the former Respublika editorial board, and that similar articles had been published in both titles.
According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), the order against the Assandi Times compounds other measures in recent months to tighten controls over freedom of expression and the media.
Several other newspapers have been suspended or closed down in unrelated cases, including Pravdivaya Gazeta at the end of February.
On 15 April, police tried to prevent journalists in Astana, the capital, from covering a protest outside the prosecutor general's office by blocking them from filming or taking pictures. One journalist was injured.
In mid-March, prosecutors charged Natalya Sadykova, an Assandi Times journalist, with criminal libel over an article about a former member of parliament. Sadykova, who denied writing the article, later fled Kazakhstan with her family.
On 11 April, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) expressed serious concern about a new decree that allows censorship during times of emergency.
Hugh Williamson, HRW's Europe and central Asia director, said: "The Kazakh authorities should end their relentless assault on free speech."
He called the case against the Assandi Times "absurd" and said shutting it down "because of its links to Respublika rather than because of specific wrongdoing is clearly an attempt to punish particular critical views."
Source: Human Rights Watch
