TV station editor beaten up over report about broken privatisation promises

Reporters Without Borders voiced outrage today at an unprecedented physical attack on B. Tsevegmid, the editor in chief of Nomin TV in the province of Orkhon, who was badly beaten by unidentified assailants outside her apartment building on 6 July. Tsevegmid, who had to be hospitalised after the attack, had been receiving threats ever since she broadcast a report about the failure of 9,000 employees of the Erdenet mining industry to receive promised privatisation vouchers. “We demand that the authorities give Tsevegmid protection and do everything possible to identify and punish those responsible for the attack,” Reporters Without Borders said. Tsevegmid had been receiving telephone threats for weeks as a result of her “Forbidden to watch” programme about the Erdenet mining industry privatisation vouchers. The head of Erdenet brokerage company had warned she would be taking a risk if she broadcast the programme. She is the second journalist to be threatened in the space of a month in Mongolia. S. Enkjtuul of the daily newspaper Udriin Sonin ("Daily News") received threats after she wrote an article about credit associations. Enkjtuul did get police protection, however.