Uzbekistan has a broad selection of print and broadcast media outlets. According to the government, in October 1996, there were 515 publications in Uzbekistan: sixty-seven national newspapers, eighty-eight magazines, and, the remainder, regional, town, and district periodicals. Of these, forty-six were the publications of state agencies and twenty-one were "founded by various nongovernmental organizations," such as political parties, foundations, and joint-stock companies; in most cases, funding for these "independent" publications was still provided by government coffers, however. Of the eighty-eight magazines identified by the government, seventy were "controlled by" the government; others were vaguely identified as belonging to "voluntary organizations" and to "other organizations."10
Despite the numbers, in reality Uzbekistan's print media are dominated by three national daily newspapers: the Uzbek- and Russian-language sister publications Khalq Sozi (People's Word) and Narodnoye Slovo (People's Word), respectively,11 and the Russian-language Pravda Vostoka (Truth of the East). The weeklies, in particular, represent a diversity of interests ranging from the views of the various official political parties to economics, the privatization process and the stock exchange.
Television and radio generally remain more influential than the press. The national newspapers are not always available outside main towns and are in any case expensive purchases for many people on low incomes (despite their very low cost by western standards). The Television and Radio Company of Uzbekistan has four national television stations. The majority of programs are in Uzbek, although there are television news bulletins in Russian. National television carries some programs from Russian State Television and Russian Public Television, including their main evening news broadcasts. In addition, there are a number of state-run regional television stations.
The Television and Radio Company of Uzbekistan also broadcasts on four radio channels. According to government statistics, as of October 1996 the cumulative duration of radio broadcasting was sixty-three hours per day.
Separate from the state television network, many financially independent local television stations are now operating. Perhaps the best-known (to foreigners) is STV in Samarqand, but in fact as of March 1997 there were twenty-nine such stations, spread across most of the main towns in Uzbekistan and broadcasting to a restricted area (usually the town and surrounding districts). The stations vary considerably in the amount of airtime to which they have access (or indeed which they can fill)-from a few hours a week to regular daily programming, depending largely on their financial means. They offer a mix of imported films and entertainment shows, plus in most cases a greater or lesser amount of locally-made news bulletins, depending on their resources, which come from private funding and advertisements. There are plans to link up these local commercial stations in a network which would import programs and sell advertising space centrally.
The broadcast and print media have increased steadily in number in recent years, with more newspapers appearing on the newsstands and an increase in the number of commercial television channels. However, their growing number belies the homogeneity of their content, particularly their news and current affairs coverage. Even a cursory glance at a few front pages of the major dailies and weeklies on any newsstand in Uzbekistan reveals that, with slight variation, they carry the same news reports (from the official Uzbek news agency), the same official announcements, use the same sources, and often carry the same photographs. This is not the same as the coincidentally similar editorial choices which a number of dailies might make on a given day-instead, it reflects the uniformity of style and content once familiar to readers of the Soviet press.
Ownership
Almost all media in Uzbekistan are owned by the state. The current Law on the Mass Media makes it difficult to set up a private, independent newspaper. Article 5 of the law states: "the right to found mass media belongs to Councils of People's Deputies and other state bodies, to registered political parties, public associations, mass movements, creative unions, and cooperative, religious and other civic associations set up in accordance with the law, and to labor collectives." The effect of this clause has been to limit ownership to organizations directly or indirectly controlled by the government.
Until August 1996 there were no privately-owned publishing houses. Then, however, the Uzbek parliament passed a new Law on Publishing allowing individuals and companies to set up publishing houses, print shops and distribution networks. Those starting such businesses are required to provide the authorities with detailed information about their identity, affiliation and aims before being licensed to operate. Moreover, independent financing can be expected to be limited for the foreseeable future. More important, as some foreign journalists have found out, independent financing is no protection against government harassment and intimidation of journalists, editors, interpreters, and others involved in journalism.
Since the demise of the USSR and concomitant economic austerity, even the State Committee for the Press has found it difficult to obtain affordable print paper. The state's role as main distributer of the paper needed to print newspapers, books, and periodicals clearly provided a further lever of control in a monopoly industry; it is to be hoped that the appearance of new private publishers making a sufficient income to obtain paper independently will help break this monopoly.
Some publications have already sought to attain at least a measure of financial independence from the state by revenue from sales and, more importantly, from advertising. Local television stations across Uzbekistan have taken the same route (see above). A number of foreign aid programs are directed, among other things, toward helping media groups develop greater economic independence. The Eurasia Foundation, for instance, has awarded grants to several local newspapers in Uzbekistan. The Internews organization is particularly noteworthy for the extensive and practical nature of the consultancy services that it provides to local, non-state television broadcasters. Internews organizes hands-on journalist training seminars and helps produce a regular half-hour program which all participating stations can show, consisting of short television features made by the stations themselves, and holds ongoing consultations on developing a local television network. (Both Eurasia and Internews are part of the aid programs run by the United States Agency for International Development, or USAID.)
Greater economic strength will undoubtedly allow editors to improve the technical quality of their publications or programming, and perhaps in the future attract better journalists who will be willing to push the boundaries of censorship. However, for the moment there is no sign that these more enterprising media organizations have been able to wrest from the censor ultimate control over their output. As one journalist put it, "even though we make enough money to cover our costs and are thus not financially dependent on the state, it makes no differencewhatsoever-the state can close us down at any moment."12 The government's closure of Vestnik Kul'tury lends credence to this fear (see "The Russian Media").
Censorship
The concluding provision of article 67 of the constitution is unambiguous: "Censorship is not permitted." Article 3 of the 1996 Law on Publishing enforces this provision: "censorship of manuscripts and material prepared for publishing is not permitted." This absolute ban on censorship would seem to be a model were it not that all published material continues to be subject to prior censorship. Radio and television programs are subject to similarly stringent controls, although these are generally exercised by a more senior editor rather than an official censor.
All of the principal daily and weekly newspapers in the capital have their offices in one building on Matbuotchilar Kuchasi ("Press Street") in Toshkent. The censorship office, known officially as the State Control Inspectorate, is such an integral part of the writing and editing process that it has its office in the same building. Editors must submit all materials-from headline news to feature articles-in final form for scrutiny by a censor before they can be approved to go to press. The head of the inspectorate, Erkin Komilov, declined to discuss his work with Human Rights Watch/Helsinki. Journalists report that his office works from a set of instructions issued in 1992 listing what may or may not be published. These instructions-which have not been made available to journalists, still less the general public-essentially take up where the published laws leave off in detailing those aspects of life in Uzbekistan, such as certain economic statistics, that must not be reported. "The result is that whole swathes are cut out of news reports after we've written them, rendering them useless... And because the instructions date from the early days of independence, the effect is actually counter to Uzbekistan's economic interests," said one journalist, adding that, absurdly, much of the censored information was already in the public domain abroad.13
The inspectorate is subordinate to the State Committee for the Press (commonly known by its Russian acronym GosKomPechat'), a government body that dates from the Soviet period. Although formally responsible for the technical side of press publishing, such as funding and the provision of paper, it also ensures that newspapers conform to the unwritten rules dictating what is acceptable for publication.
According to journalists interviewed by Human Rights Watch/Helsinki, tight editorial control means that a potentially sensitive subject is unlikely to be selected as a program or print topic in the first place. In state-run television and radio, once the preliminary script is ready, the program editor will weed out anything politically incorrect. If need be, the final film footage or soundtrack can be edited. Although essentially the same editorial mechanisms are reportedly employed as in freer broadcasting organizations, this kind of censorship and self-censorship is harder to document. Nevertheless, some journalists reported that the electronic media are in fact more heavily controlled than the newspapers. The new commercial television stations that have sprung up are not all in a position to produce news programs, but those that do so steer well clear of sensitive topics. This often has to do with in-house political controls, given the owners' awareness that their existence is vulnerable and that they depend on the tolerance of their local hokimiat, or regional government, which is the immediate registering authority.
Media as a Propaganda Tool
The media in Uzbekistan is not merely controlled by the government; it is actively used to propagate ideas and information favorable to the administration. Domestic news is uniformly optimistic in tone, and neither the bulletins nor the documentary and entertainment output is remotely critical of the government. Censorship plays acrucial role in molding new reporting and excising from it anything that does not conform to the official viewpoint. With one exception, discussed below, opposition figures are never allowed to speak through the domestic media, and the only time their ideas or very existence is mentioned is in the occasional specifically commissioned article in which they are viciously attacked. Coupled with the near absence of information from outside Uzbekistan (except for what is broadcast by the BBC and Radio Liberty), this creates an atmosphere of isolation, and deprives readers, listeners and viewers of their right to unfettered access to information. The head of State Television and Radio, Shahnoza Ghanieva, who is responsible for editing all broadcast reports, told Human Rights Watch/Helsinki representatives that there is no censorship in Uzbekistan. Rather, she said, she broadcasts pieces that are "patriotic." She sees it as her role to "give people hope for tomorrow. The perestroika period [in the USSR] shattered people's hopes."14 One former television journalist stated bluntly that he and his colleagues would never deviate from government policy because they knew that if they did, "the consequences will be immediate and unpleasant... In any case, who pays the piper here? Television, radio and the press are all funded by the state. The salaries in television and radio may be extremely low, but nevertheless it's the state that pays them."15
The broadcast media are on occasion used for the grossest forms of propaganda. In one case, in November 1995, television executive Shahnoza Ghanieva misrepresented the serious human rights concerns of Human Rights Watch/Helsinki representatives by stating that the organization had found all reports of abuse to be unfounded. She did not respond to the letter sent by Human Rights Watch/Helsinki protesting the misrepresentation and asking for a public correction.16
Media coverage of an OSCE human rights seminar in September 1996 was fairly neutral, at first, with Uzbekistan national radio carrying interviews with dissident and human rights activist Abdumannob Polat, who was visiting Uzbekistan for the first time since fleeing political oppression in 1993, and with other human rights activists. However, once the seminar was over and many of the visiting foreign participants had departed, both Uzbekistan television and the press carried aggressive feature items in which participating local opposition and human rights figures came under attack, without offering any right of reply.17
Restrictions on what may or may not be said sometimes reach absurd levels. For example, local journalists report that certain loaded words such as "totalitarianism" may not be used in any context. The distribution of the entire print run of one issue of the Russian-language literary journal Zvezda Vostoka (Star of the East) was reportedly halted and a number of pages were torn out, when it was discovered that a reference to the 19th century Bukharan Emirate as a "dictatorship" had not been removed. Journalists also say that historical material dealing with the medieval ruler Timur-a crucial figure in the new ideology of Uzbekistan nation-building-has to undergo additional high-level scrutiny before being deemed fit for public consumption. As a result, the wealth of articles published on Timur (the 660th anniversary of his birth was celebrated in 1996) paint a rosy, one-sided picture that deprives residents of access to a variety of perspectives and sources of information.
Even the weather on occasion comes under close scrutiny. When one newspaper, in its regular weather forecast column, commented that in the summer heat people might look back with some longing at the chilly periodearlier in the season, the report allegedly was queried by censor officials as a possible positive reference to the Soviet period.18
10 Narodnoye Slovo, October 8, 1996.
11 Khalq Sozi and Narodnoye Slovo share the same photographs and editor-in-chief, but present different features and maintain separate editorial staffs.
12 Human Rights Watch/Helsinki interview, Toshkent, September 27, 1996. The names of the journalists interviewed were withheld for fear of possible negative repercussions.
13 Human Rights Watch/Helsinki interview, Toshkent, March 1997.
14 Human Rights Watch/Helsinki interview, Toshkent, November 22, 1995.
15 Human Rights Watch/Helsinki interview, Toshkent, September 23, 1996.
16 See Appendix A, letter from Human Rights Watch/Helsinki, January 30, 1996.
17 For example, Pravda Vostoka, September 19, 1996, p.1.
18 Human Rights Watch/Helsinki interview, Toshkent, September 27, 1996.