When Kazakhstan’s Kurultai convened in late August for the first time, there were new rules for the media. Journalists in the Kazakh capital’s parliament building were no longer able to question deputies in the corridors. The new rules set firm boundaries not only on where, but what, they could ask members of the country’s new unicameral parliament. 

At the opening of the Kurultai’s first session on August 28, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev proclaimed the body would “radically modernize the system of government and provide a powerful impetus to the work of the entire state apparatus.” Later in his speech he urged the Kutultai to become “a platform for national dialogue to develop solutions to key issues in society.”

The boundaries of that dialogue, however, are to be set by the Kurultai itself. 

As explained by the Kurultai’s Deputy Chief of Staff Bolat Kalyanbekov in a September 2 Facebook post, “All interactions between journalists and deputies – as well as invited members of the Government – will now take place exclusively within the press center and strictly in relation to the Kurultai’s agenda.”

Kalyanbekov stated that briefings would be held on a regular basis and laid out the rationale behind the decision to bar off-topic questions.

“Our goal is to communicate the substance of the draft laws under consideration by the Kurultai to the public as clearly and comprehensively as possible – explaining the significance of each new legal provision and how the decisions being made may impact the lives of citizens,” he wrote.

Kalyanbekov also argued that the new rules were consistent both with Kazakh law and “established global practices.”

That’s not quite how Fiona O’Brien, the Europe and Central Asia regional director for the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), sees it. “Allowing journalists to informally approach and question deputies in the halls of parliament, and to ask questions not strictly related to the agenda of press conferences, are standard practices of established democracies,” O’Brien told The Diplomat.

Although Kazakhstan deems itself a democratic state, human rights organizations such as Freedom House, classify the country as “Not Free.”

“The kinds of restrictions on movement and questions implemented in Kazakhstan are more common in authoritarian or hybrid environments, where the authorities try to maintain an appearance of democracy while retaining strict control of the information sphere,” O’Brien explained.

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On October 20, Otkir Kurek – an independent media outlet headed by Nazymgul Kumyspayeva, who also runs a YouTube channel – reported that a group of around 40 journalists accredited to the Kurultai had sent an appeal to Aibek Dadebay, chair of the body, demanding revision of the new media rules. 

Otkir Kurek means “sharp shovel” in Kazakh.

Dadebay is also leader of the Adilet party, into which the former ruling party Amanat (née Nur-Otan) merged earlier this year in the runup to the Kurultai elections on August 23. Until May 5, Dadebay headed Tokayev’s presidential administration.

In the recent appeal, as reported by KazTAG, the Kazakh journalists took particular issue with the restriction of questions to agenda-items only. 

Under the present rules, “For a question that the moderator deems off-topic, the journalist receives a warning. Two violations mean the loss of accreditation for six months… For a journalist who covers parliament, this is effectively a six-month ban from the profession.”

The appeal noted that the purpose of accreditation is to enable journalists “to inform the public broadly and promptly.”

“Kazakhstan’s parliament and other state organs have long tried to stop journalists asking ‘off-topic’ questions during press conferences,” CPJ’s O’Brien explained. “Introducing sanctions for doing so and preventing journalists from mixing freely with deputies in the halls of parliament essentially closes down the last avenues for journalists to freely question parliamentarians on issues not decided in advance by the authorities themselves.”

“A briefing that repeats what has already been said at the meeting provides no new information,” the journalists argued in their appeal, seeking a revision to the existing regulations to allow journalists to ask questions outside the strict agenda but within the purview of the featured speakers. 

“A minister or deputy can always refuse to answer a question, respond later, or respond in writing,” the appeal noted. The journalists characterized the existing policy as unjustified. Journalists, they argued, need to be free to question ministers, deputies, and other officials – who, the appeal pointed out, “rarely appear in public and for whom the public has many questions.”

Kazakh journalists have already run afoul of these rules. 

In early October, in the wake of a tragic accident on the Caspian Sea in which 14 servicemembers drowned during a military drill, journalist Asem Gumarova of Ulysmedia.kz asked questions related to the incident during a briefing with a member of parliament, Unzila Shapak, and Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Sanjar Adilov. The brief was to cover a draft cybercrime law. 

Gumarova asked Shapak when the 146 million tenge that had been reportedly collected by Kurultai members would be transferred to the families of the fallen servicemen. She also asked Adilov about reports of pressure being exerted by mysterious callers masquerading as police demanding that the authors of critical posts related to the Caspian accident take their posts down. 

Ulysmedia said it received a warning letter threatening to strip Gumarova of her accreditation. The publication cited the “extraordinary nature of the incident and public demand” as justifying Gumarova’s questions.

The recent appeal to Dadebay cited the incident directly, noting that “[t]he question concerned police work online or crimes carried out under the guise of police – that is, the very topic of the briefing.”

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Accreditation procedures vary country to country. But broadly speaking accreditation confers a degree of legitimacy on a journalist and their outlet and, importantly, provides access to official spaces and proceedings. In Kazakhstan, the Foreign Ministry handles foreign media and individual state bodies, like the Kurultai, as well as the Ministry of Culture and Information, deal with the domestic media. 

Kumyspayeva, the editor-in-chief and founder of Otkir Kurek, was earlier this month denied accreditation by the Kurultai. Kalyanbekov provided an official response, which The Diplomat has reviewed, stating that the reason was a mismatch in email addresses on her application materials.

“The official reason given for the denial was that I had provided my professional email address in the accreditation application rather than the email address listed on our media outlet’s website,” Kumyspaeva told The Diplomat. “In my view, this was merely a technicality used as a pretext to deny me accreditation. I suspect the real reason lies in my independent journalism.”

Kumyspayeva takes no government funding, and told The Diplomat that the outlet does not participate in government-funded media contracts. 

“As a result, government institutions have no leverage to dictate our editorial policy, determine what subjects we cover, or tell us which questions we are allowed to ask,” she said.

Kumyspayeva has lodged a formal complaint with the Kurultai’s leadership and she intends to pursue the matter in court, if needed.  “I believe my professional rights as a journalist have been violated,” she said.

Kumyspayeva also signed the appeal sent to Dadebay regarding the media rules. She told The Diplomat her concerns stretch far beyond her own case.

“In my opinion, these restrictions constitute a form of censorship and contradict Kazakhstan’s constitutional guarantees of freedom of expression and the prohibition of censorship,” she said. “For me, this is not simply a dispute over accreditation for my media outlet. It is about something much more fundamental: the public’s right to information, the freedom of independent journalism, and the accountability of those in power.”

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The tension here – between the Kutultai leadership and the journalists who cover the Kazakhstan’s legislature – is rooted in diametrically opposed perspectives on the purpose and role of the media.

In the Kazakh government’s view, as implied by Kalyanbekov and the new rules, the media’s role is to disseminate information provided by the government. Based on that, anything not on the agenda just shouldn’t be on the agenda. The government believes that it has the authority to decide what is newsworthy, and pestering officials with questions they’d rather not answer is rank insubordination. 

“What concerns me most is that the leadership of the legislative body is effectively assuming the power to decide which journalists and media outlets are allowed to cover its activities and which are not,” Kumyspayeva explained. “In practice, this means access to elected representatives may depend not on a journalist’s professional status, but on how acceptable their reporting and questions are to the authorities.”

The Kutultai’s media rules merely add to a host of challenges faced by independent journalists in Kazakhstan.

“These restrictions are part of a severe constriction of the media sphere in Kazakhstan since the start of this year,” O’Brien argued, noting the cases of Gulnara Bazhkenova and the heads of KazTAG Aset Matayev and Amir Kasenov. Bazhkenova, former editor-in-chief of Orda, was sentenced to eight years in prison in August. Matayev and Kasenov were each given 15-months of “restricted freedom” and banned from journalistic activity for five years in July. The CPJ and other media watchdogs have characterized these cases as politically motivated. 

Kazakh courts have increasingly banned convicted journalists from engaging in journalism or engaging in other forms of public activity. The real goal, O’Brien told The Diplomat, “is to ensure that prominent journalists are silenced for years ahead.”

The larger political context is unmistakable.

“This repression appears designed to instill a chilling effect and strengthen control over the press as President Tokayev navigates the final years of his constitutionally mandated single term,” O’Brien told The Diplomat.

Tokayev was first elected in a snap presidential poll in the summer of 2019, following Nursultan Nazarbayev’s surprise resignation that spring. At the time, Kazakhstan’s presidency was limited to two five-year terms. Not even three years into his first term, however, in the wake of Qandy Qantar – Bloody January – Tokayev saw through a wide-ranging constitutional referendum. Later that year, and 18 months early, Tokayev announced another snap presidential election. He paired that announcement with a proposal to limit the presidency to a single seven-year term. In November 2022, Tokayev was elected to his second term, confirming his grip on power until 2029. 

The tinkering did not end there. Six months after commenting that haste in changing the constitution again was “completely inappropriate,” Tokayev saw through another constitutional referendum that touched almost every aspect of the document.

As the new constitution went into effect on July 1, Tokayev asked the Constitutional Court to clarify what it meant for re-election, or re-appointment, of term-limited officials, as well as the implications for the timeline on elections. The court replied that the president is eligible to run for another single seven-year term – which would technically be his third. But who’s counting?

Tokayev “is widely thought to be either preparing to run again or attempting to maintain strict control of the succession process,” O’Brien told The Diplomat. “The passing of a new constitution earlier this year and Kurultai elections, which coincided with major waves of pressure on the press, appear to be part of this process. With key journalists in jail or banned from working, the people of Kazakhstan will be less informed as this political process plays out.”

Dadebay has not yet responded officially to the Kazakh Kurultai press corps’ appeal.

“Freedom of the press is not a privilege granted by the authorities,” Kumyspayeva stressed to The Diplomat. “It is a fundamental right, and it is the public – not the government – that ultimately pays the price when that right is restricted.”