July 23, 2014 at 2:10 p.m.
Punished for the truth (4/30/03)
Dear Reader
Khabira's story stopped the session cold.
The seminar group in Bishkek had been talking about common issues, kicking around the idea of forming a newspaper association to work on things like distribution problems.
Then I asked Khabira to tell them her story. She'd spilled it out to me during the break that afternoon, and while some of her fellow journalists in Kyrgyzstan knew about it, others were in the dark.
Her problems started last May, she said. Not long after a previous seminar I'd conducted for the International Center for Journalists.
Khabira Mazhieva, a Kazakh by ethnicity, is the editor and owner of a little weekly paper in a small city called Belovodskoye. Her market is tiny. Her paper struggles. But she's trying.
And now she may be out of business.
Simply because she covered the news.
Trouble started when the "akim" or mayor of Belovodskoye decided to move the city's bazaar from one location to another. Chances are, he was going to make a buck on the land involved.
The bazaar's merchants were outraged and began demonstrating in the city's square. In no time, they were joined by other demonstrators eager to vent their anger at the akim over a host of issues.
Many of those who were angry were pensioners, who knew that the akim had been caught with his hand in the till. He'd somehow held onto his job, but the facts were not in dispute.
But when one of the demontrators said the akim "had his hand in pensioners' pockets," the corrupt politician got angry.
First, he went to Khabira and warned her not to print what the demonstrators had said. There would betrouble if any of this made its way into print.
The other paper in town agreed to sweep the matter under the rug, but that's not surprising since the paper is funded by the akim's budget.
When Khabira went ahead with the story, the akim blew a gasket.
He quickly sued her paper, whose name roughly translates as "Portrait of the Week," for 700,000 Kyrgyz som. That translates into $14,000.
Not a lot of money in Indiana or Ohio maybe, but when journalists make about $20 a month it's a significant chunk of change.
Khabira wasn't worried. She'd quoted the demonstrator accurately, there are provisions in the country's press law to allow for such reporting, and the whole thing had been videotaped, which would corroborate what the newspaper had printed.
She lost the case.
No one can say why. The judges wouldn't even look at the video and ignored the press law.
They did drop the damage award down to $1,400, and later dropped it further to $1,000.
But still, it's enough to put the newspaper under.
Khabira's house has been put up for sale against her will to pay for the judgment.
The seminar session was quiet as she spelled the whole thing out. Every editor in the room knew that they could be next.
On the flip chart at the front of the room, I added "press freedom" to the list of priorities for a newspaper association. We placed it at the top.[[In-content Ad]]
The seminar group in Bishkek had been talking about common issues, kicking around the idea of forming a newspaper association to work on things like distribution problems.
Then I asked Khabira to tell them her story. She'd spilled it out to me during the break that afternoon, and while some of her fellow journalists in Kyrgyzstan knew about it, others were in the dark.
Her problems started last May, she said. Not long after a previous seminar I'd conducted for the International Center for Journalists.
Khabira Mazhieva, a Kazakh by ethnicity, is the editor and owner of a little weekly paper in a small city called Belovodskoye. Her market is tiny. Her paper struggles. But she's trying.
And now she may be out of business.
Simply because she covered the news.
Trouble started when the "akim" or mayor of Belovodskoye decided to move the city's bazaar from one location to another. Chances are, he was going to make a buck on the land involved.
The bazaar's merchants were outraged and began demonstrating in the city's square. In no time, they were joined by other demonstrators eager to vent their anger at the akim over a host of issues.
Many of those who were angry were pensioners, who knew that the akim had been caught with his hand in the till. He'd somehow held onto his job, but the facts were not in dispute.
But when one of the demontrators said the akim "had his hand in pensioners' pockets," the corrupt politician got angry.
First, he went to Khabira and warned her not to print what the demonstrators had said. There would betrouble if any of this made its way into print.
The other paper in town agreed to sweep the matter under the rug, but that's not surprising since the paper is funded by the akim's budget.
When Khabira went ahead with the story, the akim blew a gasket.
He quickly sued her paper, whose name roughly translates as "Portrait of the Week," for 700,000 Kyrgyz som. That translates into $14,000.
Not a lot of money in Indiana or Ohio maybe, but when journalists make about $20 a month it's a significant chunk of change.
Khabira wasn't worried. She'd quoted the demonstrator accurately, there are provisions in the country's press law to allow for such reporting, and the whole thing had been videotaped, which would corroborate what the newspaper had printed.
She lost the case.
No one can say why. The judges wouldn't even look at the video and ignored the press law.
They did drop the damage award down to $1,400, and later dropped it further to $1,000.
But still, it's enough to put the newspaper under.
Khabira's house has been put up for sale against her will to pay for the judgment.
The seminar session was quiet as she spelled the whole thing out. Every editor in the room knew that they could be next.
On the flip chart at the front of the room, I added "press freedom" to the list of priorities for a newspaper association. We placed it at the top.[[In-content Ad]]
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