RSF calls for release of French TV reporter arrested in Kazakhstan

Update: Vincent Prado has been released today after being fined 61,000 tenge (140 euros) and banned from working in the Aktau region.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls for the immediate release of Vincent Prado, a French TV journalist who was arrested today while making a TV report in Kazakhstan. His detention constitutes an unjustified obstruction of press freedom, RSF said.

Prado was arrested at around 9:30 a.m. in the western city of Aktau, where he was working on assignment for Ligne de Front, a French TV production company, and for the French TV channel M6.

Although he has Kazakh press accreditation, he spent several hours this morning in the custody of the local immigration police with his interpreter, and was then taken before a judge. He told RSF that he had been followed for the past several days.

“Vincent Prado was just doing his job and his arrest is yet another press freedom violation in a country where such violations are common,” said Johann Bihr, the head of RSF’s Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk. “He must be freed at once and allowed to continue his work.”

The leading opposition national media outlets were all banned in 2012 in Kazakhstan, which is ranked 158th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2018 World Press Freedom Index.