In a press statement on 20 October, ARTICLE 19 voiced its concern saying the existing draft “seeks to impose governmental control over a wide range of publishing activities through a complicated regime of licenses, registrations and permissions, without which one may not publish, print or distribute any printed material.”

The draft law aims to regulate a wide range of publishing activities including “the preparation, production and distribution of printed products”.

The organisation is worried by the Kazakh government’s attempt to set up a new body to regulate publishers’ rights, which ARTICLE 19 said the new body would “lack independence”. Similar attempts in some other former-communist countries have ended up with the creation of politically motivated regulations and total government control on publishers rights.

It is the second analysis by ARTICLE 19, as in 2007 it had released its analysis of the 2006 draft related to the legislative regulation of publishing activities in Kazakhstan.

ARTICLE 19 promotes the right to freedom of expression and is one of the three organisations at London Human Rights House.

The recent analysis is available in English at:

http://www.article19.org/pdfs/analysis/kazakhstan-memorandum-on-the-draft-law-ofthe-republic-of-kazakhstan-on-publ.pdf

and in Russian at:

http://www.article19.org/pdfs/analysis/kazakhstan-analysis-publishing-law.pdf.