ABSTRACT
Most Central Asian countries have press systems controlled tightly by their governments and their proxies – political parties, members of the presidents’ family and friends, and financial-industrial groups. Those press systems, even that of Kyrgyzstan – the most democratic of the countries on a comparative scale – are rated as “not free” by the nongovernmental organization Freedom House (2015). The Reporters sans Frontières (2014) press freedom survey ranks the region’s two most repressitarian 1 governments among the near180 countries: Uzbekistan (166th) and Turkmenistan (178th). Domestic and international press and human rights advocacy organizations frequently criticize all five regimes for individual and systemic rights violations. Overall, as one study observed, “the pattern of press controls in Central Asia remains disturbing. At no time since independence has any of these countries seriously pursued comprehensive liberalization of constraints or de facto recognition of the importance of free expression. Although several countries – most notably Kyrgyzstan – have undergone periods of liberalization, there has been no sustained improvement” (Freedman and Shafer, 2014).
