Kazakhstan may suspend the activities of the International Journalism Center
The tax authorities of Kazakhstan may suspend the activities of the International Journalism Center “MediaNet” in the near future. This is stated in an open appeal on the organization’s website.
On January 25, the tax authorities of Kazakhstan fined Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights and the Rule of Law (KIBHR) $ 5.5 thousand and suspended the activities of this organization for 3 months. In addition to KIBHR, the activities of the public organization “Echo” (NGO “Echo” has been observing elections for about 20 years) and the NGO “International Legal Initiative” were also suspended. Other NGOs in Kazakhstan were fined without suspension.
As ACCA has already reported, in December last year, seven Kazakh independent non-governmental organizations, which were receiving funding from foreign sources, reported that they received the notifications of violations from the tax authorities in filling out tax reporting forms, which specifically relate to the period of notification of funds receipt from foreign sources and their expenditure. It was these violations that caused the suspension of activities.
Meanwhile, as reported in the non-governmental organization “MediaNet”, they may join their already fined colleagues in the near future.
“By suspending the work of public organizations, the state not only deprives thousands of citizens of the country, who are assisted by human rights defenders, of the educational opportunities that provided by NGOs which are under pressure now. Also, hundreds of employees of these organizations are without income for three months. Any organization can hardly survive even such a period of downtime. As for media projects, the suspension of any resource for several months means its actual destruction. One of such projects could be, for example, Factcheck.kz – the first fact-checking resource in Central Asia, implemented by MediaNet International Journalism Center (which faces both suspension of activities and a fine of $ 13,000). A special contrast to the situation is given by the fact that the international network of fact checkers, which includes Factcheck.kz, has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize,” MediaNet said in its open appeal.
The appeal was signed by the director of MediaNet Adil Jalilov, editor-in-chief of the Kazakh-language version of Factcheck.kz website Duman Smakov and the President of the Foundation “International Legal Initiative” Aina Shormanbaeva.
“It is noteworthy that public organizations were subjected to such pressure on the eve of the parliamentary and local elections, which is regarded as a way of political pressure. A number of international organizations and diplomatic missions have already expressed concern about this. It’s especially important to note that all so-called “violations” don’t relate to the payment of taxes or the provision of tax reporting, didn’t entail any arrears to the budget and generally any damage to anyone. This reporting has an informational nature, where some discrepancies or inaccuracies are not associated with intent to illegal actions, and the punishments look completely disproportionate. The state revenue authorities are determined to punish independent organizations as much as possible, ignoring the possibility of eliminating mistakes,” the appeal says.
