His Excellency President Nursultan Nazarbayev

Almaty, Kazakhstan

c/o Permanent Representative to UN

Email: kazakhstan@un.int

17 December 2003

Your Excellency,

We are writing on behalf of the World Association of Newspapers and the World Editors Forum, which represent 18,000 publications in 100 countries, to express our serious concern at the draft media law being considered by parliament.

According to reports, the government has submitted the draft law "Concerning Mass Media" to parliament for consideration. We are concerned that if the draft law is accepted as it stands, it would jeopardise constitutional guarantees of freedom of expression and represent a further serious blow to freedom of expression in your country.

Experts believe that the scope of the law is extremely broad and that many of its provisions could be used to impose significant restrictions on freedom of expression. Particular difficulties arise from the fact that the government is seeking to regulate all aspects of the media and all media sectors in a single piece of legislation. In addition, many definitions used are reportedly insufficiently clear, unnecessary or confusing.

According to reports, the draft law sets out sweeping provisions governing compulsory registration, licensing, accreditation and access to information that are vaguely delineated and open to abuse by any government seeking to suppress criticism. Furthermore, the systems of registration, licensing and accreditation are overseen by bodies which are not independent of government and provide a clear opportunity for state control of the press.

We are concerned that experts suggest that several provisions of the draft law fail to fully respect international standards of freedom of expression, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 19 of the Declaration states: ’Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes the freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media, regardless of frontiers.’

We respectfully call on you to ensure that the proposed law is thoroughly redrafted so that it fully respects international standards of press freedom and reinforcesKazakhstan’s constitutional guarantees of freedom of expression.

We look forward to hearing from you at your earliest convenience.

Yours sincerely,

Seok Hyun Hong

President

World Association of Newspapers

Gloria BrownAnderson

President

World Editors Forum