My View

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the newly independent countries that appeared as a result of this had the opportunity to change the principles of regulating journalism and ensure freedom of speech, which was not available for a long time. However, the governments far from all countries decided to follow this path. At the moment, it can be observed that in most post-Soviet countries the restriction of freedom continues in the media and especially the use of political censorship.

In the USSR, the use of censorship for the restriction was widespread in all types of media, rejecting any dissent. During communism, people received guaranteed public education, medicine and life support, but at the same time were deprived of the right to express their personal opinions and deprived of their freedom of action. After the collapse of the union, however, each country had a period of formation, when the new government earned the trust of citizens and tried to develop the country, promising complete freedom and rejection of communist principles. Democracy replaced communism, or, at least, it looked like that. Based on past experience, the governments of post-Soviet countries, due to the already established self-censorship among citizens, introduced political censorship in the media. A fictitious democracy has been formed in the countries.

The implementation of censorship in post-Soviet countries have a number of distinctive features, such as the presence of "stop lists" - a list of people who are not allowed to be mentioned on television or in print media. This list most often includes opposition politicians and individuals with ideas different from generally accepted standards. Although the governments officially do not confirm the existence of stop-lists, TV and radio journalists disclose the fact of this on the Internet. Another feature of media regulation is the lack of opportunity to challenge a government censorship decision. This is expressed in the maximum vagueness of the concept of censorship and the protection of freedom of speech in the legislation, as well as in the non-provision of a court acquittal. Thus, the code of laws does not explain how the law works, but its very existence allows to condemn the source of information that came under censorship.

As a result, it can be noted that censorship in post-Soviet countries is a massive tool for regulating information in the media. The historical and political basis for limiting information, moreover, makes media develop and adapt in a completely different direction. While around the world, there is now a problem with fake news due to an oversupply of information, in post-Soviet countries, in turn, on the contrary, there is a lack of information.

For Further Research

Unfortunately, I am not able to dwell and tell about the presence or absence of censorship in the media in each of the post-Soviet countries, so let me give you a few resources that actually can do this.

1. https://freedomhouse.org      

Freedom House is an organization that compiles reports on the freedom of print media and the Internet around the world. It is noteworthy that, according to the data of 2017-2018 among post-Soviet countries only Estonia has received FREE status, while in some, Internet freedom prevails significantly compared to printed media (Armenia, Georgia), and all others have NOT FREE status.

2. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/09/internet-freedom-post-soviet-world

If the dry statistics seem boring to you, or vice versa, not sufficiently informative, then I suggest reading the excellent article about social media in the post-Soviet countries from The guardian portal. On the Internet, you can find similar articles that simply condemn, but The Guardian copes better with its task, citing as an example the events related to the freedom of speech in countries, which allows a much better understanding of the issue.

3. http://www.ijssh.org/vol6/771-HS0030.pdf

 Attempts to restrict freedom of speech do not go unnoticed by the world community. The northern post-Soviet countries, being in mutual relations with Europe and under its influence, are forced to ease the measure of regulation and to respect civil rights, however, the southern countries are closer to the traditional way of life, where the power of government is absolute. In the countries of Central Asia, not only political censorship, but also self-censorship greatly affects the media. About what led to self-censorship and what are the distinctive features of media in Central Asia you can read in the article of Gönül Cengiz.

Current Events II

Several posts have already passed, but I have not said a word about the country where I come from and what is happening there. It is time to correct, so I will talk about political censorship in the media and the violation of civil rights, which are closely intertwined.

Sadly, protect civil rights is one of the most acute problems in Kazakhstan. The largest opposition political organization "Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan", for example, is recognized as an extremist, demonstrations in its support are illegal, and any mention in the media is minimized. Although I don’t want to criticize or approve the court’s decision, as I didn’t fully understand the situation and the available data is rather contradictory: the head of the organization, Mukhtar Ablyazov, is accused of embezzling 7.5 billion dollars, some people in Kazakhstan actively support the organization and deprecate government corruption.

On March 22, during the state holiday Nauryz, through a video on YouTube, Ablyazov called to go out with blue balls as a sign of the support of the organization. Given that blue is a popular spring color and the basis of the Kazakh national flag, it is unclear how many of those who wear blue balloons were Ablyazov’s supporters and how many of them simply celebrated the holiday with their families. Police officers detained everyone indiscriminately and without any reason, accompanied the citizens to check documents in official cars and violated several points of the police regulations. The same thing happened to journalists and anyone who tried to shoot this chaos on camera.

After the holidays, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Kazakhstan stated that it did not distribute among its employees instructions to detain people with blue balloons during the celebration of Nauryz, and the balls themselves were not ordered to withdraw to anyone. Days later, official publications did not write about this incident, and the news was spread only through independent resources and memory managers.

You can find more information here: https://thediplomat.com/2018/03/ablyazovs-balloons-kazakh-opposition-co-opts-the-color-blue/

What the Experts Say II

In order to better understand the situation in post-Soviet countries, it will be useful to look at this with a concrete example. The article by Lasha Chkhartishvili, an employee and researcher of the Modern Georgian Theater Research Center of Ilia State University in Tbilisi, Georgia, will help in this."Censorship and Self-Censorship in the Post-Soviet Georgian Theatre" describes the stages of the formation of the modern Georgian theater in a tense political climate and the presence of various types of censorship affecting the evolution of the theater.

Today, not so many people are paying their attention to modern theater, however, this has considerable interest among the Georgian population, although plays on political themes not only resonates in the hearts of the audience, but at the same time getting the attention of the government. Today, not so much people are paying their attention to modern theater, however, this has considerable interest among the Georgian population, and political-patriotic performance not only resonates in the hearts of the audience, but at the same time getting the attention of the government.

If you are interested, you can learn more about this from http://www.critical-stages.org/8/censorship-and-self-censorship-in-the-post-soviet-georgian-theatre/

What the Experts Say I

Being outside of the post-Soviet countries, it is rather difficult to make a review in detail the position of journalism in them due to the closed media space and the lack of uncensored information. Therefore, those rare scientific articles relating to the issue of censorship, which are published in these countries, make it possible to fully analyze the situation and based on arguments and statistics evaluate this or that event in the media.

This is the value of "Post-Soviet Perspectives on Media" by Ander Richter, which provides an overview of how journalism and media in post-Soviet countries is regulated by law. In the book, author suggests ways to create free journalism by providing access for the political opposition to public and state media. This book is recommended to read, as it can help to understand the causes of censorship in post-Soviet countries, the consequences of this, and show in detailed examples why restrictions in the media under various pretexts, such as terrorism and extremism, do not stand up to criticism.

Richter, A. (2007). Post-Soviet Perspective on Censorship and Freedom of the Media.

Link to the book: https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000153744

Current Events I

On April 30, 2018, demonstrations were held in Moscow against the Russian government blocking the popular Telegram messenger.

Telegram is positioned as the safest messenger in the world through the use of end-to-end encryption, where only communicating users can read messages, and using a self-developed messaging protocol, called MTProto. After approving Yarovaya law, the Russian government began to request decryption keys from various messengers under the pretext of fighting terrorism and reading the messages of users suspected of terrorism. The management of the messenger refused, explaining it with technical impossibility. In response to this, in April 2018, the Telegram IP addresses began to be massively blocked, however, the IP addresses of many other Internet services in Russia were also blocked, which caused serious problems in the overall work of the providers throughout the country. In total, the government has reportedly blocked over 19 million IP addresses.

Unable to endure anymore, the residents of Moscow took to the streets to protest and tossed the planes in the air in an act of solidarity with the encrypted messaging service. Express their disagreement with total censorship and violation of private rights to privacy decided about 10,000 people, including political activist Alexei Navalny and participant of the notorious punk rock band Pussy Riot, Maria Alyokhina. After the demonstrations, Telegram Founder Pavel Durov expressed gratitude to the participants of the action and said that he would continue to fight for the preservation of user data.

At the moment, Telegram continues to function smoothly in the territory of the Russian Federation, however, the government continues to look for ways to block the application and asked Google and Apple to remove the messenger from the Play Market and AppStore.

You can find more information here: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/02/world/europe/telegram-iran-russia.html

Media censorship by the government in the post-soviet countries

Well, first, let me say that this blog was created as a study project for the media class at the university and is designed to consider and examine the issue of censorship by the government in the media space in post-soviet countries. In this blog, I’m going to not only provide detailed information on the topic of our common interest and give some real-life examples, I'm also going to express my personal opinion on this topic.

The topic of censorship in the post-Soviet countries is extremely relevant and important for me, since I am a citizen of Kazakhstan, and I myself was a witness of numerous hiding or correcting information in the media. However, you can also become a part of this blog by leaving cases about the use of censorship in the media in your country or by asking a question in the comments under the posts.