The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has criticized Kazakhstan President Nazarbayev's "frequent use of politically-motivated criminal charges to harass opposition journalists."

In a letter to the president, CPJ's executive director, Ann Cooper, called for reversal of the "unjust conviction" of Yermurat Bapi, editor of the opposition weekly SolDat, on charges of insulting the "honor and dignity of the President." The real offense, she suggested, was daring to tell the truth about the president -- that the US Justice Department is investigating reports that US oil companies allegedly paid tens of millions of dollars in bribes to senior Kazakh officials, possibly including the president himself. Bapi was sentenced to a year in jail, required to pay court costs, and the offending copies of his newspaper were ordered burned. Although the jail time was dropped under an amnesty, "Unless the court verdict is overturned, however, he will remain a convicted criminal who is banned from traveling abroad, among other restrictions," Ms. Cooper wrote. SolDat and another opposition paper similarly accused, XXI Vek, are unable to publish because local printers fear harsh government reprisals. CPJ called on Nazarbayev to "end the criminal prosecution of journalists," which it said violates the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. "There is no justification for restricting legitimate news coverage simply because it may be critical of [his] government." President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev called for increased state oversight of the press-even though his decade in power was already marked by rigid control of independent expression. The National Security Committee (KNB, successor to the KGB) regularly harassed independent and opposition media last year. Journalists also faced countless defamation lawsuits filed by government officials and associates of the president. In May, CPJ placed Nazarbayev on its annual list of the "Ten Worst Enemies of the Press." Opposition media outlets suffer most under these and other repressive laws. The main opposition party, the Republican People's Party of Kazakhstan (RNPK), finances a number of newspapers including the weeklies XXI Vek and SolDat, both of which were subject to various attacks in 2000. The RNPK also sponsors the Web site of the Moscow-based Information Analytical Center Eurasia(www.eurasia.org.ru), which the government blocked on the country's two main Internet service providers last year.