KZBlog

Another article that got lost in the to-post-on files: Two reporters Attacked.

The first was Igor Larra who works for the independent newspaper Svoboda Slova (Freedom of Speech) on the 24th of March in Aktobe, Kazakhstan near his home. The attackers, three men, allegedly said “Greetings from Zhanaozen” before beating him. At the time, there was an oil-worker’s strike in the city of Zhanaozen that Lara was covering, one of the biggest strikes in the history of Kazakhstan and one of the most successful. The fact that his attackers apparently did not take any money or valueables from him lend credence to the theory that he was attcked for his reporting, according to Svoboda Slova

Larra described the incident to Vremya:

It happened on the street, when I was almost entering the building…I was called by name. I answered them. Then he told me: “Greetings to you from Zhanaozen!” – And began to beat me. I can’t remember any special features of the attackers – it was dark. They tried to hit me on my head: I have a big bump on his forehead, black eyes, they got me in the nose a few times and split my lip. I passed out for sometime, and when I came to, they were already gone.

Larra was apparently an active member of the Azat opposition party. Earlier this year, Larra was detained by the police for attending an unsanctioned meeting of Azat.

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The second story of a journalist attack took place on the 28th of March in court in Astana. Zhulduz Tuleova was attacked while covering the story of a forced eviction in Astana.

According to Reporters Without Borders and other coverage I have seen, Tulevoa, who works for TV station 31, heard that a decision had been made to evict a woman from her government sponsored apartment, apparently given to her as long as she worked for Parliament. Tuleova arrived to cover the story of the eviction and alleges that seven bailiffs from the Almaty regional court arrived and asked her for identification. When she produced her press license, one of the took it and left. They then accused her of not being a journalist at all, and forcibly removed her from the apartment–without allowing her to put her shoes back on–twisting her hands behind her back. The bailiffs also attempted to take the camera away from her cameraman, Baurzhan Smagulov. She claims that she was threatened with legal actions against her as well.

Apparently, a member of the local NGO “For Decent Housing” filmed the incident on his mobile phone.