Press Freedom Index: Kazakhstan Drops Eight Positions

The international non-governmental organization Reporters Without Borders has presented an updated version of its press freedom rating, Orda reports.

In the 2024 ranking, Kazakhstan ranks 142nd out of 180 possible, while a year earlier, it was in 134th place.

The reason for this was one case. Reporters Without Borders qualified it as an illegal detention of a journalist.

They do not specify the case, but it could concern Daniyar Adilbekov, the author of the Telegram channel "Dikaya Orda."

In 2023, no incidents of violation of journalists' rights were recorded in Kazakhstan.

However, in the latest report from Reporters Without Borders, our country is mentioned in a negative context several times.

They also mention Aidos Sadykov, who was killed in Kyiv. 

Reporters Without Borders directly calls the attempt on his life "an order from Kazakhstan."

Kazakh blogger Aidos Sadykov was shot dead in Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, where he had been living as a refugee for 10 years. After 13 days in a coma, he died on 2 July 2024. The assassination — unrelated to the full-scale Russian invasion — was ordered from Kazakhstan. Aydos Sadykov and his wife, journalist Natalia Sadykova, co-founded the YouTube channel Base, which covered corruption in Kazakhstan, the report says.

Overall, Reporters Without Borders says the quality of journalism in Kazakhstan is improving.

Meanwhile, pressure on the media by the authorities is also ramping up, and the only space where the government does not have complete control over information is the Internet.

According to Reporters Without Borders, 54 journalists were killed worldwide in 2024.

Palestine had the highest number of media workers killed (16), followed by Pakistan (7), Bangladesh and Mexico (5 each). 

As for the illegal detentions and convictions of journalists, the figures are that 550 members of the press were sent to jail worldwide, with China (124 people), Myanmar (61), and Israel (41) among the leading nations.

Another 55 journalists were taken hostage, primarily by Islamists in Syria, and 95 went missing. In this regard, Mexico was the most dangerous country).

The Reporters Without Borders report also mentions Kyrgyzstan: 11 journalists working for the YouTube channels Temirov Live and Ait Ait Dese faced detention in the nation.

Four of them were convicted in October of calling for mass unrest.

Original Author: Nikita Drobny