Journalism in Kazakhstan | RISJ Seminar with Darkhan Umirbekov, Digital editor at RFE/RL's Kazakh service

12:30PM Feb 9, 2022

Speakers:

Meera Selva

Keywords:

journalists

people

protests

kazakhstan

question

detained

report

called

government

situation

days

internet

correspondents

service

verify

protesters

treated

happening

media

cover

Hello, and welcome to the Reuters Institute for the Study of journalism global journalism seminar series. At the start of this year, amongst many other big news events, protests spread throughout Kazakhstan, sparked at the beginning by rising fuel prices. Like the yellow vests protests in France and protests in so many parts of the world. This anger of fuel prices was merely a Tinder for wider discontent. In Kazakhstan's case, the anger was overstate corruption, inequality and anger over unequal distribution of the country's natural resources. amongst many other things. The protest started peacefully but escalated into violence. That was the worst the country had seen in nearly 30 years of independence. Now can America cough a digital editor radio Liberty's Catholic stern service based in Almaty joins us today to talk about what's going on darken was a fellow at the Reuters Institute in the UK at the start of lockdown. It's wonderful to have him back here and zoom that can welcome and thank you so much for joining us.

Hey, mira, thank you. Thank you for having me today. In this seminar, it's an honor to join you today.

Great, thank you. Can you just start off by telling us a little bit of what happened at the start of this year and whether it was something that caught you unawares in your newsroom?

That day, the first four days were holidays in callosum. So the we were at home not working. When the protests started in the rest of Kazakhstan, so we sent our correspondent to the region. But on the next day on January 3, the protests spread into other regions including the capitol where I'm based in North Fulton and it was like a, you know, mess, sporadic protests going on, going over different places. And since those days were holidays, it wasn't possible to bring all the reporters to work. And I and then editor it's not my usual work to report from the state but I have to go to streets and report from the protest myself. And that's how I was a part of this protest reporting in the first day. I send you a video. There were just a few people but the police detained them anyway and blocked me while I was reporting while I was shooting to myself on camera, and then in the following days, the protests culminated into into you know, valid violence.

And was this something you'd been anticipating when you went out to cover the protest? I know you, you said you're an editor. So it's not your it's not your day job. But if you had some journalists out, would you did you think you were sending them into kind of a into a conflict zone?

No, we didn't anticipate but like we were aware that our journalists might be detained that they might, they might go for her because we had that experience in the past. But like we were fully prepared, like we are our customers saying that we were journalists, and nothing they were nothing that we could anticipate about the violence but again, like we were in the capital, where the situation was more or less calmer. The violent the violent clashes were in cities like Alma Shem, Qin and Tara's in, etc. The cost of service main office is in our motto, which is Kazakhstan's biggest city. We are in the capital.

Okay, thank you. Yeah, sorry. I made that mistake earlier. I mean, overall, about 12,000 people were arrested and at least seven journalists were amongst them. And 160 people, at least that we know about were killed during these protests, including a TV news worker in amati. Mora

officially it's 225 60 Will is for Amata cities. I'm not a city like 167 I guess that it no matter law,

okay. Yeah. What's the mood in Kazakhstan at the moment? Is it it's a kind of a shock or trying to process what happened.

We will do like, the situation is not over. It's continuing with the mass areas and the torture is in prisons and people who somehow attended as a peaceful protester, or those who were just injured in occasionally while going to pharmacy stores or looking for the relatives, and with millions of reasons they have to go to streets on those day, but they were not protesters, and they were detained as well. And if you were injured on those days, that for the police that was an evidence that you are just so called band, a mobster or terrorist and that was a reason for the police to detain you, even from the hospital. situation continues in another form.

So when you went into the protest, what was the mood amongst the people towards journalists? Did they feel you were part of the establishment was their facility or do they feel that you're there to tell the story?

Very that's very interesting question. So our Farrell's caste service was, is a very few is among a few media artists that covers all the protests even if there are also rights from the government in Kazakhstan, the media outlets are they all control or either owned by the government and they're just they avoid covering the protests. And since we have a reputation of telling the truth, and usually we are treated very friendly with the practices treat us very friendly and in the capital. So they were they welcomed us, especially me, when I went live on Facebook. They were telling the Germans and talking to me, and like they were saying that it's air Pharaoh just listen to them or just you know, you they were very friendly, but on start from January 1 to January six, when the protests did develop into the violent clash in amata, and Shem. Can cities. My colleagues told me that they were harassed and attacked, either verbally or physically the they were very hostile to our journalists and there was a moment in our motto when some unknown group of men should they fire at our correspondents they barely escape.

And what do you think caused this hostility? What was the change

here? Oh, it's really hard to say now. Like the government, though, sir, they say that the there are three components of the protests. That's first they're peaceful protesters, then they were just occasionally mobsters or looters and then the terrorists. We are not sure but like they were reluctant to be to be filmed to our cameras. Perhaps that's one of the reasons I cannot say, Oh, another reason why they did that.

It's just very striking that it's becoming becoming a trend that in these protests, the mood changes against journalists, and if you don't quite know where the threat comes from, whether it's coming from the authorities or vigilantes.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. We don't know. And people were telling, talking about the provokers or provocateurs and if that's true, that might be another reason. Like you know, the provokers. From the we have no evidence but there is a we have an experience with mass protests going violent. And we have like 1968 events in while we were under Soviet Union. And Jonathan events in 2011, when many people observed that there they were provokers, from the authorities to who were dressed up as ordinary people, but provoking to fight and to do to saying very bad words against the leaders of peaceful protests. And, and people were saying that the features of provokers were seen in Amata and other cities as well. So we are not sure.

And it's it. I mean, it's kind of hard to get a sense of how vast Kazakhstan is so to report on this nationally, yeah, yeah. I mean, I want to come to more come back to the protests, in particular your detention in a moment, but just staying on this issue of the size of the country and how hard it is to get a sense of what's happening. There. Also internet blackouts during this period. So talk us through how this affected your work. And how easy was it to get communication from your correspondents around once they returned from the holiday?

That's very important question. We were fertilized. We couldn't do anything those days. And we were shocked because we were not prepared to that kind of situation. The internet was blocked in the night of January pips. And, and that was a total blackout. Because they were the state of emergency declared entire Kazakhstan, but the following days, so we were out of the internet and we were in in the Internet Information blocking for a couple of days. And then they also noticed when to turn you on the internet for a few hours in the regions where the situation worse, more or less calm. So in the capital, this situation was stable, and they they gave the internet for a few hours. And so we were in in you know, in panic how to use those hours effectively. So as I said before, our main office is in Almaty, and Amata alata suffered from the violence most and they were out of the internet for the entire period, and they were burned. Luckily the traditional conventional phone connection work when we were calling each other and all we could do is to just report what what by word. We were not able to send our video materials, or just audio just our reporting from the phone connection. And then the the following this as well, like but the problem was that we didn't know what time and in what period they're going to give the internet. So one day it was like in midnight, one day it was in the morning. And first we have we had to go to the streets and fields and then send it was heavy files. That was very struggling. But then there was another problem. Our office in the capital is close to the presidential palace. We were in a building that's called journalists house. So we have many our colleagues from other media artists as well as life story building. And did there was a cordon surrounding the presidential palace and our office was inside that courtroom and this this situation was that the RMS holders wouldn't let us in to our office out while I our colleagues from other artists didn't have any problem entering their office but they treat us especially I mean the cause of service and then later we learned that someone from the they turned down the internet but someone from the journalists house had like satellite connection, and they suspected that it was referrals cause of service but later we learned that that was Russian media that not us. Okay. Yeah. But, you know, like we were not able to use our office that means that we couldn't edit our videos. So we have to you know, we first we had to just shoot the streets events. To our cameras, and then we didn't know how to edit and because all our computers or laptops were in our office. So we do there was a like double problems like it doubled our problems.

So what did you do? Yeah,

so we went from to each other's house using like, just very, very ordinary laptops. That was very difficult to work because they they would start while they were processing like heavy video materials. And then we switch to cell phone cameras, we would shoot and send it right away. But our colleagues in Prague, they were under stress as well because they were collecting information from all over the ridges, and they were only few few correspondents in Prague, and they have to just you know absorb all the information. It was very challenging to them as well. Yeah, I mean, we tried to send them there. They're ready, ready to go metal video folks, but it was difficult. And then we switched to cell phone. Movie movie cuts like we were just shooting videos in short and then sending.

I mean, what you did under those conditions are are incredible, and it's actually good. I'd like to show some of the work you produce and just some of the scenes because you were arrested you were detained by police while covering the protests on the third day. I think that's right. For the day, and you

know, it's if you were counting from the first day of protests, it's third day but from the if we come from the from the first day of New Year, it's it was on january fourth

Gotcha. Be more prospective the date and tell us what happened. Oh,

yes. So it was the Oh for me, like I was at home, spending my time with my mother who came to visit me. And suddenly I got a call from my colleague that saying that there was a mass protests going on in my neighborhood. The UN asked me to go there to report and I rushed into that place because the day before we were receiving messages that there was a protest in some place and we were going there and just to learn that they were all detained. Like it was a it was a game you know, you heard something you go there. You have to just be on time today to see what what was happening and I rushed into the place. And first time I went, I was able to report from the protests, but my cell phone was over. It was recharge, recharge and I went back home and charge it and when I returned to the protest the to the place of protest. It was empty and surrounded by police bed. And we were saying oh, just we were not on time like we are late. And then we've heard just a noise from the other side of the street and we run into that place and there was a mess detaining and ultra protesters, like over hundreds of people were being detained over there. And just we, me and my colleagues are reporting and since that was like an unexpected protest and I was very close to the protests. I didn't have time to get to office and get my mass media jacket. But I was holding my camera and my press ID together and explaining the riot police that I'm a journalist. They were they approached me for like couple of times. And when I said that I explained that I'm journalists, they would let me go and with further detail in other but in the end they detained me anywhere. My press ID didn't work.

And then you carried on filming from the back of the police van. Yeah,

I went so that the reason they detained me they were sure they were aware that I was journalism but a journalist but they didn't want to be reported from that place. Because in that radio in that reduce. The internet was all that the internet was blocked locally. And I just was shooting to my camera but when the policeman moved away from that place, the internet when gay came back, and I decided to go live on Facebook and I did it and I was interviewing other people who were detained on this me.

You do have a Deathwish that

irritated the police as I can

imagine. Tell us a little bit about those interviews. What were the people telling you?

They said that they were just occasionally people they were returning home like you know when the there was a like I said hundreds of people protesting in that place that would call like taxi drivers place and when the police tried to detain them, they run into their houses like residential houses, and they were people returning from home from work or just going somewhere and they detain them all the didn't recognize identify whether they were protesters or not. And they were occasional people one man one it was like 15 year old boy said no, I I attended the protest. So I am I can confirm I can confirm that. Like he didn't try to say that like you know he's not a protester as well. The different people were there in policeman but yeah,

no, I mean, it's kind of an extraordinary story because it's it's both kind of very high tech and low tech environment where you can switch off the internet and still carry on getting the story out via mobile phones and kind of if and, and, you know, and, and, and kind of oddly, you know, Kazakhstan is the second largest miner of Bitcoin outside the United States. So in the you know, the Bitcoin hash rate, which you mentioned, the computing power of machines plugged into the network dropped by over 10% After the internet was set to shut off. And this is kind of an extraordinary impact of of what's going on, you know, in Kazakhstan. Can we imagine if you're ready could we show a little bit of footage from January the fifth which the day after dark comes arrest when you're back to covering the protest? I think it's worth showing what can be done with kind of football phone equipment basically.

Engine Thank you. Thanks very much. I mean, it's a kind of it's both incredibly vivid and you can see that very confusing scenario. Can you tell us a little bit what we were seeing there?

That was on January 3. So the day when I had to report myself not Yeah, they the police approached me and asked which videos that I represent. When I said like air carriers cancel service. They said okay, and they go away. They went away and just to return after five to 10 minutes to detain the protesters and three police officers. Just blocked me these run in blocked me and they so I raised my hand so that to feel that the detention, but they blocked my camera with their hand. So I'm saying on the video that I've showed you my darkness, I'm a journalist, you are interfering with my work. And they said no, no, we're not interfering, but like still blocking me. So I run away for a while but like then the policeman went away. So that's what I could to show.

Thanks very much. Can I'm going to switch now? To the journalist fellows in the room who have questions, and I'll start with should prover just wait for a few moments for the camera to get.

New equipment whizzing round slowly. Are you sure that she's nice the prover Hi. Yeah, not to repeat the question. If if if it's not audible?

Yes. Roman from Bangladesh. I just wanted to ask them in that sort of situation. Obviously you're putting yourself at risk. But there's also a risk to protesters, especially in states where there's quite a lot of surveillance. Maybe in the heat of the moment you people are viewed by you were interviewed by you. What do you are there any essential rules about keep in mind we're doing this on reporting to kind of protect the protesters there. You do ask for consent or are they able to kind of give it or take it away in that moment?

And I'll just repeat that. So good question during the protests, you're putting yourself at risk, but also the people you're videoing are kind of at risk of being harassed further. Are there any rules or kind of considerations you follow to keep both yourself but also your interviews safe in that time, other guidelines you follow?

So it's it was a public place, and it was a public event like mass protests. And so we assumed that if a person comes to join the protest, and they're at least ready to be filmed, or to be sure, to the camera, and during the older protests, even if they're authorized or not authorized, there are many police officers that are filming the protesters. So that's not only media outlets, We're just filming them. And but when we approached people, we asked like questions, and there are some, like, if they are not ready to talk, they would just turn their turn away and say that they are not going to give an interview. So yeah, that's how we deal with that question. But like, again, it's like we're not talking to the people in their house or it's it's not a private event. It's public events going on the street. So we assume that that's the decision to attend that event is also a consent to be to be seen on cameras.

Thank you. Thanks very much. And I'll go to Robin to going back to the question of internet blackouts.

I hope you can hear me I think you can actually see me that you had with internet blackouts. And that's the kind of thing that's happening in a lot of countries now in different parts of the world. And obviously, you're a little bit impaired for that going in because it was a bit unexpected. Is with the benefit of your experience. Now. Is there anything that you think of the journalists in other countries where this is happening? Is there anything that they can do to prepare for that in the future?

Yeah. So this time telegram social network, called telegram worked very well through very well, especially during the protests because in order to publish a story on on on a website, you have to go through the protest process of just, you get you first interview people and then write down and edit them, even if it is an article or a video. So, in that kind of situation, the time the shortness of the content is a key to reporting and you cannot if there is a total internet blackout, you cannot publish video stories. You cannot publish your long stories. You can just give short stories on social media like telegram and telegram was almost the only source of information for those days because those who are who are good, who were good at using telegram I mean media outlets, they were sending the new store news messages consisted of couple of sentences, and they were just very successful. In informing people. But I can and if the phone connection works it's always good to have someone from abroad to have access to your to your sources like the website or social media. Accounts. Like you could just if the internet is not working, you could call by your cell phone connection. You can borrow your cell phone to someone from abroad to update your pages on social network or to your your website. That's what we understood from those events. Like all the media who somehow managed to report on those days had someone abroad. Those days, if you are just totally like in one country if you have no one to report from abroad, like you have no tools to report because the internet everything is connected to the internet, like your social media, your like your website, like you have no way to report because internet is blocked. So

thank you and related to that good good to Hannah for question because which I've got I've got a related question about verifying information. But didn't you ask your question, Hannah, and then I'll follow up.

Yeah. I was wondering. Hi, I'm Hannah. I'm from Norway. I was wondering how you able in a situation where there was internet blackout, and you had legitimate fears of being arrested while in the streets? How were you able to get sort of the bird's eye view of the situation what was happening on a national international level? And were you able to access official sources at all to compare and contrast their stories with what you were seeing and recording from the streets?

Yeah, during those days, there was a monopoly from the state to to inform people. So that was another challenge because the only source of information from those days were the state TV channel called 24, KS Ed. And this The interesting thing is that like, these days, many people rely heavily rely on the internet and they just don't have the TV or if they have TV, it was like somehow, like internet connected they don't use the conventional like cables. So like we were on but luckily I had access to the state TV's TV channel, and we were just hearing the official version of stories. And since we've had an experience from such kind of events in the past, we were just skeptical. We were just asking questions, because like the President said, like 20,000 terrorists, and we were sure that it would be very difficult to prove that they were 20,000 terrorists. Like but there are other people who had no alternative source of information who had to accept that point of view. That was the only official source and but the state agencies were reluctant to answer our question they were not answering us. They when when you in Kazakhstan, when you usually call the press secretary of state agency, they press us which media outlet you represent. If you say everything those kinds of service, and the chances are very high that you wouldn't get any answer, because, you know, we are treated very specially in Kazakhstan. But if you represent a state TV, they would give you some comments. I mean, I'm not sure it's all the time but it's most of the time. We are very struggling to get official answer and during those days, we are not able to ask to get comments from the government agencies. They were just releasing press, press, religious they're just publishing proof views or talking to state TVs and was a government's monopoly to inform people to this I I'm not sure if I might answer the question.

Because it doesn't say I think it's kind of an incredibly difficult information space to report from where you've got you can literally see what's happening around you, but you can't. You can't kind of get the bigger picture. I'll go to Morton in a moment, but before I do, can I just stay on this and ask a bit more about misinformation because we're in a plastic case here with essentially misinformation coming from the top. You know, the government official sources that's feeding your life that you suspect isn't correct, then it's a problem. But how else were you able to kind of verify what you were seeing on telegram and you must have been bombarded with these short mobile phone clips from people? Were you only using what you got from your own reporters?

Oh, so we didn't. So we couldn't verify a lot of things that were government were saying those days. We just kept reporting on what we saw with our own eyes, like we had our correspondents in many regions throughout Kazakhstan. We just were calling them they would go to the squares or to the protests, and they would tell us what this is what they had seen. with their own eyes. So we would just report what we've seen with ourselves. And whenever there was a report coming from the government, we were saying that their authority saying this and we had no alternative source of information to either confirm or to denounce that statement. We were just always giving disclaimer. So that's on the information that comes from the government and we have no way to verify that news. Just it's the decision on you, the reader or viewer to decide whether it's true but what we see this what the government says this, but we were not able able to verify that like that's, that was the solution we came to, we were using and one more detail to the to the reporting under the internet blockage so we were calling our relatives, friends and all people we know who were leaving in different districts of the city. Like, while I was in the capital, I was calling my friends. The people I know in Almaty like asking what you are seeing what you're hearing in Where are you now and we were you know, we were collecting that kind of information like we started doing very rudimentary job to collect information under the total blackout.

It can literally look out the window and see what you tell us what you see.

Yeah, exactly. Like some people were saying, like I hear firing, I hear bombs, or someone would say like, in our district, everything is called I can't I'm not hearing anything, something like that. And we would we would make our own like virtual map of the city but of course we wouldn't publish it but just for our internal use. That's one one solution to to exploit in those days.

Interesting. Thank you, Martin.

Hi, I'm Wilson from Denmark. I have a question for you doing this sort of frontline reporting and being detained by authorities. What is the most important learning that you take away from this experience when it comes to freedom of the press and mass protests?

I just repeat that question in case it's wasn't audible completely. What's the most important learning you take away from this experience when it comes to freedom of the press and mass protests?

So the authoritarian region is always trying to hide the truth. That's not a news. The new thing to me. We were just expected we were we are always ready to that kind of situation. And it's always good to prepare for that kind of situation in terms of law, like they would interrogate me and I would say like, I wouldn't answer that question. I need to I need to talk to my lawyer. Like, that's my that's, that was the very crucial thing. And they just gave up and they said like, Okay, go away. You can go now. Like we are not charging anything. Like they were asking why you did this. Why you are not like wearing the journalist jacket. I was explaining and I said like, when the question was tricky. I said, I would say like, I need to discuss my lawyer. Like that's was the thing that irritated them and but they were they felt very, like hopeless in trying to get me to say some words to use it against me. But there was another thing I had I had a feeling that I was treated especially and I enjoyed privilege that others couldn't enjoy because I was representing the international media outlet and detaining the correspondents of international mass media means that even if it's not the international scandal, scandal, it's international awareness. And they're trying they tried to be very careful. And when I was at police station, I was like, feeling that Oh, like from their eyes from the just movement like it's him. Or that will that's journalists or something like that. Like every everyone when I was walking through the hole like everyone was referring to me I was feeling that and for hours I was detained. I was sitting in a like comfortable room with the police officers. While other detainees were in just one small room. There was no like fresh air to breathe or they were treated very differently. And I felt like it'd be a shame that because I was representing like international media I was treated like more or less normal. But I was asking myself like what would be if I was representing a local media like I would be treated very badly and they I would get hurt. That was like, you know, number one point I get from that detainment like it's it's very pity to sing that cause a journalist Kassar protesters had to go through those difficult process like beating ups or just, you know, arbitrary detention. Even if I'm telling you that even if I was detained, I was confident that I would be treated, you know, polite politely by the ndd because I presented our fields cancel service.

If I just kind of follow up from that point. Thank you. Thank you for the very important question as well, for follow up from that. What do cassock journalists need now from the international community and enable them to carry on reporting

awareness, more awareness? If there is awareness, then then the government you know, try to compromise and they trick if you if the international media artists are writing about you. So they, the government, they will sort this step back and try to reconsider the DC decision. It's very hard pressure on our government. So right now we are in the orbit of Russia. People say but we are the country where still like you know, we are not too confident as Kremlin to be brazen about our internal decisions like we we feel the pressure, our sororities feel the pressure from abroad, and the cousin of journalists I think we'd be happy to for just more international awareness. That's, that would be great help to Canada. This

is a really good point. Thank you. And we'll, we'll do what we can. And I'm good to go to Emily in who's from Hong Kong. So I understand the situation all too well. Emily, feel free to either ask your question or any other question that you've thought of since a year at the back, Emily. There we go.

Hi. Nice to meet you. As a Hong Kong journalists, I'm very concerned about your country situations. But is it okay for us to just let the Chinese know kings journalists to go to your country to cover the contest? Because for my experience, 10 years before I go to scene John, and then cover the conflict between vigorous and Han Chinese and then those Han Chinese just those amigos just trust me evil. I'm come from Hong Kong. They just been the all you have belonged to the Chinese Chinese sighs and that part is it the similar similar situations now in your country because I know that even China not like so active to support your country like Austria but they also support your country. A house, your people, it's been about China.

So I think the two questions were would it be safe for someone who looked like Emily to come and report because when she went to St. John to cover the conflict between the weekers and the Han Chinese, he found a huge amount of mistrust with amongst the leaders. They just don't trust Chinese reporters. And then the next thing is, you know, the role of China is playing at the moment and whether it's helping the government essentially kind of repress foot protests and and media.

That's very interesting question, but it's hard. To tell me to speak on behalf of weavers in Kazakhstan. Perhaps they would suspect but I don't think that they would be very hostile to you. If you visit Kazakhstan. It depends on the on the knowledge of local people if they're informed that Hong Kong is not, you know, Hong Kong, Hong Kong enjoys the media freedom, and it's not the same as it's in in China. Perhaps they would talk to you without any problem. But like if you are visiting Kazakhstan in if you speak Russian very well, they people wouldn't think that you are a Chinese, you know, because causes are Asiatic in their appearance, like you know, it depends I mean, if you're fluent speaker of Russia or or kata that completely changes your interaction with weavers. Like if you say that you're a Chinese journalist, I came from Hong Kong. Perhaps they would be like, you know, they'd be suspecting or they would be laner reluctant to talk to you, but I don't think that they would be very hostile to you.

Thank you. I'm going to ask a question from Paula who I think is not in the room. If that's correct. Pushed in the room, you are in the room. Hi. Sorry. I didn't ask you a question. Yes.

I don't know. Thanks. for sharing all of this with us. Just about company, that dimension and it will spin media, how the media reputation affected the way the reaction of the demonstrators to the breath to sort of identify you as a trustful journalist so that we do in a different way than the way they were treating other journalists. They proceed in a different way. So my question is, if you could tell us more about how those reputations are built. How which are the most important aspects about reputation? And I'd like to know also, how do you maintain? I guess, objectivity and vitality is a key aspect and help you attain that when there's also the government trying to install this binary discussion loaded, you know, lack of good and bad violence and peaceful demonstrators.

Just you know,

what women stand to do in this situation.

Thanks, Paul. And really, really important question and it's coming from Chile. And just to just to repeat it, it's so you talked about the media's reputation affecting the reaction of the demonstrators. How do you how do you build that reputation? How do you maintain it, you know, how is it built? And then what are the most important aspects and how do you maintain the reputation and objectivity when the government is trying to create a kind of binary logic of good and bad people versus violent protesters? Traitors versus patriots? You know, what do you do in this space?

No, I would say that it's not as hard for us to make a good reputation because as I said before, there are very, very few independent news outlets in Kazakhstan. And even if they're, they're not as resourceful as referrals because of service. You can name you can name Mumbai, you're just people the fingers on your one hand, and so it will just tell the truth, just for going to the protests are no service protests brings you like super reputation, you know, because the vast majority of the media artists are usually ignored those protests. So I would say that it's not that difficult to get a good reputation of in Kazakhstan. If you're too independent news outlet, like you just cover you just do your work and you got your reputation. That's not a problem. But you're right. On those days during the violent clashes in Almaty. The protesters burned down and they offices of state TVs and the TVs that they saw a propagandist in like three media, three TV channels, offices, I guess were brought down. So yeah, that's the only thing I could say right? Now. And what was the second question?

When you kind of addressed it? It's like how do you how do you operate when when there's kind of a narrative being created both kind of good versus bad?

Yeah, we we try to verify or just tap check or the government statement which we have a service called like factoring. We do practical statements if they're wrong. And then if this there is a very like, great statement, or just very loud statement from the government, we analyze the statement or we we try to provide the opinions of analysts or political scientists, what they think about those statements. And usually like, knowledge experts are very skeptical about the statements and we provide the other side. That's the way how we deal with the government's point of view with the government's way to control the narrative. And I would say that the our authorities are not good. Shaping the narrative of public policy in Kazakhstan. Perhaps.

Thank you Thanks very much. Thanks for the question. Paula. Can we talk a little bit of data collection? I think this is really interesting. There is an absence of reliable information of what's going on and you have done what so many journalists tried to do which is gather your own, and you've been collecting a list of people killed during the January protests and could you tell us a little bit about that project, how it came about how you're verifying that list? Where you get your data from?

Yeah. So from the very beginning of the aftermath. The main issue was how many people were killed to this. And the human rights defenders started, they own these right away. And we catch them up a couple of days later. And they were just reports from different sources. People were just sharing their stories on social media. Or on media outlets. We started collecting, we created our Excel database, just threw it into the database, everything we collected on open sources. It was very chaotic in the beginning, like we had new names but didn't have like the birth date, or did have the day of deaths. And but like we were collecting, and then it came to into our system later on, and the way how we prove it like first, the first part of the least the first on the first days. They were like it was unverified lease, but we decided to publish them anyway because we we posted the lease with a disclaimer saying that we might be wrong. Please correct us if we are wrong. So that like, we were just fulfilling to test first when when we posted that list. We were doing two tests like first, we were just called improving the quality of the old list. People were saying, Oh, you have my relative on your list, but you will add his birth date or you are wrong in stating that he will he died in that city. He actually died in that PC. I'm ready to provide his documents something and they were people who were saying like you, you didn't have my relatives in your list my son or my uncle so on and so forth. So we were extending our list and meanwhile we were improving its quality. And yeah, right now people send us their that they statement from the medical organizations in stating how they died like from the bullet. They're just other documents. So the list the later people, the people who were in into the list later, they they are just verified very well. But again, like if we if someone says that person, a date on those days, we put it we put that on the list without even we can verify because as I said before, it's important to provoke people to you know to, to call us if we are wrong. We are ready to accept the end we we removed two people from the list. They were lost. And then luckily they they were found alive. So yeah, that's how we if we waited and see until all the all the information verified, who is lost very precious, valuable time. We need to report right now we need to talk to people right now because it's they're very emotional. Now. They're ready to talk. If we start calling people after healthier. We do our work.

It's again it's this kind of fundamental look out the window but also your the first draft of history and then get written and edited later. Yeah. Okay. Go ahead. Sorry.

You, you might ask, like the reason why we're doing that because everyone is asking why we're doing it the what, like when we talk to people, we we look like an interrogator or a police officers ourselves and they suspect that like why do you ask that question? And we are saying that they are authorities refused to name the people they said like 225 And we say like without telling the names without telling the stories. This the mere number 200 a 225 doesn't mean anything. It might be the you know, it might be you know, some, you know, stones 225 Stars 225 horses 200 I mean, you cannot deliver the feeling that 225 Five people died on those days. It's official number but they're not providing any names and the prosecutor's office, we address our prosecutor's office, and they refused to get to give us the list. And we don't know how many people died from which region you know, this is for the entire country. Now we see the picture. How many people died in what cities? What were the ages? What were they doing on those days, you know, that gives us a picture of those days, and the government is refusing to provide us with that data.

We are telling you telling the story. What do you call the list or is it the freedom list?

No it's called I already explained to Caitlin. It's ready. arqueros fees are Shirelles cost of service is in cousin called positive which means freedom. So it's just in people refer to ourselves Catalog service as a reducer. For others. That's why Indian culture. Yeah,

thank you. Thank you very much. I'm going to go back into the room to Nikki niggun from Indonesia. That's okay.

Just to go back to, you know, again, practical things that can be done for reporters in this environment.

Well,

hi. Hi, I'm Nick. I'm from Indonesia. I want to ask you about after everything that happened to you and another journalist during the protest, he said any judgment or consideration, or rules from your office while doing such reporting? In my case in Indonesia, my my office gave us like how much care Flohr also cover all the instead of logo for protecting the somehow it works for protecting us because you need have to do that report. So what what what

thank you for your question. It was the first thing we started considering after the process because we hadn't seen such big mass protests in our history, and we were not ready for that. And people were just getting injured, or bit. We're getting shot. To this. And now we are considering to wear helmets, if we are going to cover protests and bullet bulletproof jackets. And the clear signs that we are doing this is now we are considering that but like I said before, it's the first time we're experiencing such a big event, such big protests and it happened in entire Kazakhstan. You know, previously there was a soul there was a belief that among the another set, it would hard to organize such protests, or like like you like that you saw in Arab Spring, because there was a large 30 Because I started this nice largest territory, it's very hard to mobilize people because like, you know, you know, as soon as you try to join the process, then you are blocked because the investor is few people. But this time, like we saw that almost all ridges went protesting. It was like on national protest day and we were not not ready for that. Now we are I think after that we will be ready in terms of our what we would be wearing during those protests. But other than that, we were, of course we value the security of our journalists and we were ordered to stay home those days. Yeah, we we were very careful when the situation we're under or not. Full control. So our journalist StateFarm we were reporting from house, but then yeah.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you for the question and darken. Would you please take care of yourself? Yeah, thank you, for our own sake as well. It must have taken the terrible toll on you and also your family. Who suddenly worrying for your physical safety on top of everything else, are they are they okay? And have you kind of had to set up you know, things processes so that they know that if you're you're arrested, they know they know what to do or where to go.

This situation. The one thing that exacerbated My situation is that my mom was visiting me in the Capitol. They My parents lived in Poway from the Capitol like it's 1000 and half kilometers away and she said like she said in December, like I'm going to visit you I said, Mom, it's the end of the year I would be very busy. My wife would be very busy. Come at the very beginning of January when we would be like, enjoying the holidays. And then she came on January 2, and she saw what she saw, like they were on the street, just going around the city. And and I wasn't able to record I mean, I had a like very brief time to call my relatives but I decided to go live and report from the Facebook. And I didn't warn them. And they saw about my detention from the news story from our fearless Castle service and when I was at police station I wasn't worrying for my detention. I was worrying for my mother. How, what was she thinking? What was her feeling? Because like, she came she she comes in a year visit me and she saw this like they were very like no they were worrying about my me joining our pills Catalog service because the know how important how bigger authorities treat airfare is cause of service, but I would say like I'm an editor, don't worry. Reporting from the state is not my usual job. As they said, okay, okay. And then they see this, so I felt very terrible. I feel terrible thinking about that. But I think now they should be okay. Okay. Yeah, I hope so. But they're not.

So come and visit you again.

I hope so.

I can thank you so much. It's been an incredible hour, just full of color and insight and again, a window into an episode this year that we got very little information from abroad. And it's been a real privilege to have you talk to us directly about it. So thank you so much for your time, and we wish you and all your colleagues both in the international and the Catholic media or the very, very best in the coming months ahead as well.

Thank you. Thank you for paying attention to the situation Kazakhstan. It's very important and I'm very open to any journalists from abroad to talk to discuss the situation Kazakhstan if you and just right now I'm addressing the fellows if you are in somehow you end up writing a story about Kazakhstan feel free to touch me and I would be happy to assist you in your recording. And again, like I miss Reuters Institute, I miss Oxford and I changed my time I spent there. Thank you very much for inviting me to join this session. Thank you.

Thanks very much. Thanks for your questions, guys. And next week, we have Dominic Young from accetti. Talking about micro payments for news. So kind of shifting gear, intermediate sustainability, but in the meantime, thanks, Mark. And thanks, everyone, and we'll see you next week.

Thank you. Bye bye.