“Nazarbaev’s nightingale”, or Minister of Culture and Information Yermukhammet Ertisbaev seems to have caused some stir in the Kazakh media landscape.

During a press conference earlier this month, Eritsbaev demanded that journalists from the independent TV station Era leave the room.

Among those protesting against the minister’s rather rude behaviour were the heads of Kazakhstan’s Union of Journalists and Adil Soz. But, what is the problem?

“Okay, let’s say I prohibited it [from filming],” he said. “So what?”

True, the RFE/RL report does not mention the reason why Ertisbaev dismissed the critical reporters from his audience. Maybe the problem was that he made more comments in the aftermath that he should better not have made:

According to the him, an editor at “Vremya” called him and, in front of the cameras, Ertisbaev said: “I told him not to call me anymore. He asked me ‘why?’ and I said because you are repulsive,” Ertisbaev said.

Now it seems that everyone is going to sue each other. The nightingale should go, according to journalists from Vremya:

“When a nightingale gets bird flu you have to save yourself from it, irregardless of who owns it or what your political positions are,” Boreiko said.

Prime Minister Masimov is looking into the matter right now, so it’ll be interesting to watch that story over the next couple of days.

Incidentally, the only time I saw Ertisbaev behaving in a rather rude manner was when he fell asleep during a conference in London.