Kazakhstan, chairing Europe's main democracy and security watchdog this year, was criticised by the organisation on Monday for using censorship to silence dissenting views.

Rights groups have slammed the West for allowing Kazakhstan to assume the rotating chair of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), saying the ex-Soviet republic is not qualified to lead a group devoted to promoting democracy.
 

A Kazakh court ordered last month that the print runs of three newspapers be seized after they carried reports on corruption allegations against President Nursultan Nazarbayev's son-in-law.
 

"Shooting the messenger of bad news is an old habit of autocracy that democratic media freedom standards have banned as a dangerous attempt at censorship," OSCE media freedom representative Miklos Haraszti said in a statement.
 

"In order to freely exercise their right to report, media outlets should not be held liable for publishing statements made by identified sources."

Criticism a taboo
The first ex-Soviet republic to assume the role, Kazakhstan has never held an election judged free and fair by the OSCE itself. Public criticism of Nazarbayev, in power for 20 years, remains taboo in the mainly Muslim Central Asian state.
 

A Kazakh foreign ministry spokesman said he could not immediately comment on the OSCE statement.
 

Nazarbayev's powerful son in law Timur Kulibayev, who has sued the newspapers for libel, is sometimes tipped as a possible successor to Nazarbayev, 69.

Lawsuits
Speaking broadly of Central Asia, an authoritarian region where political dissent is not tolerated, Haraszti mentioned several lawsuits involving Tajik newspapers, as well as a separate libel case in Hungary.
 

"In all these cases, high-ranking plaintiffs are seeking to punish the media for doing their most basic job - informing the public about public issues," Haraszti said.
 

"In the case of Kazakhstan and Tajikistan, the particularly harsh punishments sought by the plaintiffs endanger the very existence of the few critical-minded media outlets that remain in these two countries."
 

Kazakhstan, which secured the rotating OSCE post after pledging to implement democratic reforms, has rejected criticism of its human rights record and said it was making gradual changes to its political system.
 

Source: Reuters