This is a translation of Adam Kesher’s post published on Russian-language neweurasia.

“Some countries have gone ahead of Western democracies in press freedom situation, while the most repressive countries have stayed as they were” - these words opened the fifth index of freedom of mass media, published annually by “Reporters Without Borders”. Kazakhstan has fallen from 119 place in 2005 to 128.

Kazakhstan’s performance in five years has never crossed the line that divides the table into two. In 2002 our country started on 166 place with 42 points (lower number means better state of freedom of speech), placing itself between Mauritania (41,33) and Equatorial Guinea (42,75). In 2003 Kazakhstan has lost 22 positions.

Next year we observed some curious statistics - Kazakhstan has jumped seven places higher, which could have seemed as noticeable improvement of media environment - however, the index itself has gotten worse - from 42,5 to 44, 17! In other words, it turned out that some former freer countries (mainly, post-Soviet and African) have restricted media control even more than Kazakhstan.

In 2005 we have improved our position, and found ourselevs on 119 place with 36,17 points. However, the “Reporters” tone was not complementary - Kazakhstan was listed among the countries “where journalists have the hardest times and where repressions … hinder their work”. And now we observe another collapse 9 places down.

Our former neighbor, Mauritania, went up to 77 place with 17,5 points index.

Unfortunately, president Nazarbayev is on the list of “Predator of Press Freedom” for several years now. As the “Reporters” say, the title is given to those “…people behind press freedom violations whose responsibility is not always apparent… have the power to censor, imprison, kidnap, torture and, in the worst cases, murder journalists”.

The paragraph about Nazarbayev has the following resume:

“Most of the media, public or private, are controlled by Nazarbayev and his eldest daughter Dariga Nazarbayeva, a media owner. A few opposition newspapers exist but are routinely targeted by the government through cancellation of contracts with government printing firms or straight bans on printing. All dissenting voices are systematically stifled. The president was reelected in 2006 by more than 90% of the vote and his family are likely to rule the oil-rich central Asian republic for years to come. His opponents have been eliminated, some of them physically”.