Imprisoned journalist complains to United Nations

Reporters Without Borders supports the complaint that imprisoned journalist Ramazan Esergepov has sent to the United Nations Human Rights Committee about the Kazakh authorities’ refusal to grant him a conditional release. His wife, Raushan Esergepova, handed the complaint to the head of the Kazakhstan Bureau for Human Rights in Almaty on July 28. The bureau will forward it the United Nations. The editor of the weekly Alma Ata Info, Esergepov was arrested in January 2009 and was sentenced the following August to three years in prison on a charge of revealing state secrets in a 2008 article. Having served a third of his sentence, he could be paroled but the authorities have refused to release him. The current holder of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s rotating presidency, Kazakhstan was ranked 142nd out of 175 countries in the 2009 Reporters Without Borders press freedom index. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 16 July 2010 Concern over health of newspaper editor jailed for political reasons Reporters Without Borders is worried about the health of Ramazan Esergepov, the editor of weekly Alma Ata Info, and condemns the fact that the authorities are continuing to keep him in prison although he has completed a third of his three-year jail sentence and therefore qualifies for parole. Jailed for publishing an article about alleged influence-trafficking involving a leading businessman and representatives of the National Security Committee (KNB), the KGB’s successor, Esergepov is being held in Prison Camp No. 158/2 in the southern city of Taraz – a long way from Almaty, where his family lives. “Esergepov was unjustly convicted for drawing a case involving state officials to the public’s attention,” Reporters Without Borders said. “He is being punished for shedding light on something the authorities would prefer to hide. Not only was his trial marked by irregularities and his initial sentence unjust, but the decision to keep in prison now shows that his detention is politically-motivated.” Although he has served a third of his sentence and could therefore be paroled, the prison authorities have said that they cannot take a decision for the time being. “The fact that Kazakhstan holds the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s rotating presidency and should therefore be taking the lead in combating human rights abuses makes this situation all the more shocking,” Reporters Without Borders added. “In fact, there has been a marked decline in respect for press freedom since Kazakhstan took over the OSCE presidency at the start of January.” Esergepov went on hunger strike from 6 to 11 June to protest against his continuing imprisonment and the OSCE’s inability to tackle human rights violations in Kazakhstan. He has several serious medical conditions including diabetes and hypertension and was transferred to the prison infirmary on 12 July. Arrested on 6 January 2009, Esergepov was sentenced to three years in prison and a two-year publishing ban on 8 August 2009, at the end of a trial held behind closed doors that was accompanied by serious irregularities. A Taraz court confirmed the sentence on 22 October 2009.