28-05-2024, 08:07 Category: English, News
Media coverage of xenophobic attacks on foreign students and migrants should have shed light on the true causes of the violence and played an important role in informing society and mitigating intolerance. However, many aspects of the context were not reflected in the media at all. It seems, the journalists were focused on the authorities’ reports only.
By Inga Sikorskaia
The analysis showed that the media focused on the chronology of attacks against foreigners, their beatings, robberies, referring to a viral video from the Internet showing a fight between foreign students and local youth a week ago.
Media with reference to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Kyrgyzstan informed that this very video preceded the attacks on foreigners.
The violence broke out in the late hours of May 17, lasting for more than six hours, when hundreds of Kyrgyz people targeted hostels of international students, leaving more than 40 injured.
From May 19 to May 21, 2024, in breaking news, various media outlets reported that around 20 student hostels and their private residences were attacked. Foreigners from Pakistan, India, Bangladesh lived there. But the main targets of the attacks were Pakistanis.
Three days later, on May 22, another fact suddenly appeared in the media space.
With reference to the Department of Internal Affairs of the Chui region of Kyrgyzstan, it was reported that on the night of May 17-18, when the violence occurred, a large group of aggressive people entered the sewing workshop in which "citizens of India, Bangladesh and Pakistan worked and lived.” The aggressors carried out a pogrom, destroyed property, beat foreigners, took money and iPhones, and then disappeared. They were later detained.
Also local media reported that 64 sewing shops where foreigners worked closed down after the attacks.
The first reason was the mass departure of foreign students and workers from Bishkek, on special flights sent by the Pakistani government. Second, the media wrote, Kyrgyz authorities deported migrants who had violated the migration law.
For narrative analysis, news and reports in 13 media outlets in Kyrgyzstan were analyzed randomly using AI. The analysis of 138 media contents showed that only the informational significance prevailed in the coverage of violence. There were no analytics and journalistic investigations into the causes of violence.
Journalists focused on short reports based on releases provided by the authorities, which were dominated by five main news focuses. The media interpreted the xenophobic attacks in different ways. Some media labeled the mob attack as a "spontaneous protest" (44% of media coverage found), while others said there was a "fight," "incident," "conflict," etc. Journalists presented the mob attack to the audience as a criminal drama, although in reality it was a hate attack, as the targets were foreign nationals.
Diagram 1. News focuses in the analyzed media.
Official statements of the Kyrgyz authorities in the media were demonstrated by quotations from the speech of the President S. Zhaparov, and quotes from the head of the State Committee for National Security of the Kyrgyz Republic (GKNB), K. Tashiev. The response of Pakistan and India to the attacks and violence against foreign students was represented by the voices of the Prime Minister of Pakistan and the embassies of both countries in Kyrgyzstan.
The stories of victims of pogroms and beatings that should accompany media reporting were not found in the content studied. Despite, giving victims the opportunity to express their point of view and share their experiences is one of the main rules of conflict-sensitive journalism.
It was only through international media that audiences were able to learn, for example, that a large group of foreign students who were in a café in the Kyrgyz capital during the mob attack hid for 14 hours in the basement of the establishment.
Instead, many local media outlets showed the same visuals, with broken doors, vandalized dorm rooms, and the Minister of Health leaning in the operating room over a beaten Pakistani student.
Most of the stories in the local media were like a criminal news and summaries of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
In addition, there was no discussion in the media about the impact of hate violence on the political, social and cultural fabric of Kyrgyzstan, the importance of promoting diversity and the need to overcome xenophobic attitudes found media monitoring of news and reports posted these days following the attacks.
There were also no views or comments in the media about the danger of fear of foreigners and the subsequent spread of hatred, which can transform into intolerance towards members of other races, ethnicities, cultures or religions.
Instead, the media speculated on how the economy and tourism would be affected by the sudden mass exodus of foreign students and migrants. Economists reported that universities with foreign students could lose substantial revenues.
Below is a list of the main narratives in the researched news and reports published in the days following the attacks and violence.
· "economic losses in Kyrgyzstan's garment industry due to the outflow of migrants after the violence";
· "economic losses in the education sector due to the outflow of foreign students after the violence";
· "economic losses in the tourism sector due to the fall of the country's image amid violence against foreigners";
· "the reasons for the attraction of foreign labor to Kyrgyzstan and reasons for the increase in quotas for labor migrants from South Asia".
The retrospective content analysis highlighted the use of imprecise but nonetheless suggestive quantification of the foreigners.
Media rhetoric most often focused on issues of illegal migration and violations of migration law. Back in mid-April, local media wrote that citizens of Pakistan and Bangladesh who were staying illegally in Kyrgyzstan after their visas expired had been deported.
Media rhetoric in the run-up to violence showed the use of imprecise but nonetheless suggestive quantification of foreign citizens. The media frequently used expressions such as "expulsion of illegal aliens", "influx of migrants to Kyrgyzstan", "because of foreigners on the roads of Bishkek the number of traffic accidents has increased", "the surge of anti-migrant sentiments in the country has been recorded since March 2024".
Finally, the analysis of news and reports on violence against foreigners in the media showed that, apart from the lack of context and lack of balance, there was also a lack of analysis where the audience could learn the real reasons for what happened. However, it was important to explain what factors may underlie xenophobic attacks in order to help them understand the complexity of the problem.
This aspect also lacked the opinions of experts: human rights specialists, sociologists and others who could have provided valuable information and analysis of the situation. Journalists should clarify what provokes people to commit hate-motivated attacks in order to help society understand how to counter this phenomenon.
In fact, balanced, objective coverage of violence acts as a resource for "collective morality. The rules of conflict reporting and media portrayal of such stories require not only conveying the suffering of victims, but also offering solutions through investigation and transparency.
It is this approach that encourages audiences to envision what society, its level of culture, upbringing and education should be like, and how to combat prejudice to prevent such violence. Understanding this is an important skill for ethical and effective journalism.
Military men near the aftermarket during mass clashes, Osh, June 201
Training’s participants on mediation and conflict management are building the Tower of Peace, Bishkek, April 2011
Training in destroying stereotypes for journalists, Bishkek, April 2012
Workshop on production of team reporting in multinational journalist groups, Bishkek, August 2012
The School of Peacemaking and Media Technology in Central Asia announces an annual competition among students from Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan,…
25 journalists and media workers from various regions of Kyrgyzstan have been trained to counter the propaganda of violent extremism and hate in…
Within the current context, media and journalists in Central Asia face the following dilemmas: How to cover issues happening in Afghanistan now? How to communicate information to the audience while describing the Taliban, whose image has been presented mainly in reports on terrorist attacks for almost 20 years? Can journalists offer audiences updated and redesigned narratives about a seemingly ex-terrorist group, while complying with standards and ethics?
Conflict-sensitive approaches, peace and solutions journalism tools, and new media formats can help create strategies to offer audiences a sufficiently clear and objective story.
Not Terrorists Anymore?
Kazakhstan was the first Central Asian country to officially remove the Taliban from the list of banned terrorist organisations. President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said Astana took this step based on "the importance of developing trade and economic cooperation with present-day Afghanistan and understanding that this regime is a long-term factor”.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kyrgyzstan soon reported the same decision, emphasising that it was "aimed at strengthening regional stability and maintaining a dialogue”.
In mid-September 2024, the media reported on the "unofficial visit” of the head of Tajikistan’s State Committee for National Security Saimumin Yatimov to Kabul and his meeting with the Taliban security chiefs. It was noted that the visit was made to "strengthen bilateral relations between Tajikistan and the Taliban”.
Official Dushanbe has not yet made any statements on this, however, at the time of writing this article, the Taliban were not on the list of terrorist and extremist organisations. Economic interests play their role. Tajikistan exports electricity to Afghanistan and has reopened five markets in border towns where goods are traded on both sides. Foreign trade turnover between the two countries totalled about $46 million in the first six months of 2024.
In Uzbekistan, the Taliban were not included in the 2016 list of 22 terrorist organisations banned by the Supreme Court of Uzbekistan. After the Taliban came to power, official Tashkent opened the Uzbek-Afghan border for the delivery of essential goods and humanitarian aid.
This August, Uzbek Prime Minister Abdulla Aripov visited Kabul. According to media reports, Aripov met with Taliban leaders and discussed bilateral relations and strengthening trade and business between the two countries. As a result, five trade and investment agreements were signed in the energy, agricultural, and industrial sectors.
Turkmenistan had been in contact with the Taliban representatives even before they came to power amid growing tensions over the paramilitary attacks across Afghanistan. On September 11, 2024, in the border town of Serhetabad, Turkmenistan and the Taliban representatives relaunched the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) Natural Gas Pipeline Project. This large-scale project was first initiated almost 10 years ago.
The pipeline is expected to transport up to 33 billion cubic metres of natural Turkmen gas to South Asia annually.
On the one hand, the Central Asian region is becoming an important partner for Afghanistan offering infrastructure and trade projects and increasing cooperation with the regime in Kabul. This cooperation is taking place despite violations of the rights of women, girls, and minorities, restrictions on media freedom, arbitrary executions, and active calls by the UN and other international human rights bodies to put an end to such violations. The regime’s representatives in Kabul are still on the UN Security Council Consolidated Sanctions List.
On the other hand, Central Asian countries are concerned about security issues.
For example, in early September, a suicide bomber, a member of ISIS (an organisation banned in Central Asia), detonated an explosive device near the Kabul prosecutor’s office killing 6 people and injuring 13.
This fact and the length of the common Central Asian border with Afghanistan, which is more than two thousand kilometres long, pose a danger of infiltration into the region by members of ‘sleeper terrorist cells’.
Where Do We Start?
Define the unified terminology you will use in reporting on Afghanistan-related topics.
How should we describe the formerly banned and terrorist Taliban movement now?
Refer to international documents. Look up the UN-used terminology in the Case Law Database. In the latest speech of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk, the regime in Kabul is referred to as the ‘de facto authorities’. This is quite a correct phrasing as it does not legitimise the authorities but only shows the reality.
In statements and reports of the European Union, the authorities in Kabul are called ‘the Taliban’. Many foreign media – BBC, CNN, Al Jazeera, and others – also use this term. For the Central Asian media, it is less acceptable because for several years, the phrase ‘the Taliban’ was necessarily labelled in brackets as ‘the terrorist and banned movement’.
The following is a list of terms that may be acceptable to use.
To use definitions correctly, it is necessary to update editorial guidelines and compile a list of terms for reporting on Afghan issues.
More precise terminology is necessary to create a balanced and impartial narrative when describing events related to Afghanistan.
What Events Should I Select for Reporting?
The most suitable topics may include:
Human Rights and Other Sensitive Topics
Many media avoid reporting on this sensitive issue amid Central Asian countries’ selective cooperation with Afghanistan. However, reporting on human rights violations is a journalist’s ethical obligation.
The exclusion of women and girls from education and employment opportunities, as well as from public spaces, continues in Afghanistan. Extreme forms of violence occur. In addition to forced early marriages and sexual violence, the Taliban has adopted a decree on public flogging and stoning women to death.
The UN Women estimates that since the Taliban came to power, they have adopted 70 documents restricting women’s rights and freedoms. Such policy is carried out with no regard for the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, which Afghanistan ratified in 2003.
At the end of August 2024, the law on ‘Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice’ was announced by the de facto authorities, which prohibits women from saying anything out loud in public and demonstrating their faces outside the house. This law cements policies that completely erase women’s presence in public – depriving them of their autonomy, attempting to render them into faceless, voiceless shadows.
Pay attention to the following topics:
Use Teamwork to Prepare the Material
Teamwork and cross-border reporting are great methods to gather information from different sides. Create a team of journalists and experts from several countries, including Afghanistan. Identify the topic and the person responsible for finalising the gathered information.
Citations, Statistics, and Online Resources
To keep up to date, create a similar list of Afghan media and keep track of the information. Pay attention to Afghan media amu.tv, which is based abroad. It has a separate constantly updated section on cooperation with Central Asia.
When reporting on violations of women’s rights and violence against women, in addition to using international reports, monitor incidents of gender discrimination on Rukhshana.media. This is an Afghan women’s media organisation created in memory of Rukhshana, a young woman stoned to death in Ghor province for running away after a forced marriage.
Be careful with citations. If you are going to use official press releases, it will be necessary to give some explanation in brackets after phrases such as ‘Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’ (note: This is the title of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan used by the de facto authorities since 2021), etc. The same should be considered when republishing materials from Afghan official media. If you use Russian-language versions of Afghan websites, it is worth double-checking the information several times, as problems with translation accuracy are common.
If references to Afghan statistics are needed, you can use data from the National Statistics and Information Authority (NSIA). However, there is no comprehensive information available. There is a lack of data on the ethnic composition of the population. This problem dates to 1979, the last time a population census was conducted. After a failed attempt in 2008, another census began in 2013 and was expected to be completed in six years. According to the Minority Rights Group, it was decided that the census would not include questions on language or ethnic background for fear that the results would be too politicised and lead to another failed census. However, the census was never completed.
What Background Information Should Be Used?
Reports on issues in Afghanistan should always contain background information to better explain to the audience what is happening. Since the Central Asian aspect is more focused on the events after August 2021, it is necessary to mention the process of peace negotiations in Afghanistan, why all the conditions of the Peace Deal were not fulfilled, and how the society lived before that.
For example: "De facto authorities came to power in Kabul after the previous Afghan government led by President Ashraf Ghani collapsed amid the US troops withdrawal from the country in August 2021. Earlier, in February 2020, a Peace Deal was signed between the US and the Taliban in Doha (Qatar) after more than eighteen years. The Deal addressed a reduction in violence, withdrawal of foreign troops, the start of intra-Afghan negotiations, and guarantees that Afghanistan won’t again become a refuge for terrorists. However, the Taliban failed to fulfil several conditions of the Peace Deal. The Taliban was formed in Pakistan in the 1990s after the Soviet Union’s troops withdrew from Afghanistan. Many of its early militants were trained in Pakistani madrassas. After NATO troops’ deployment, Pakistan gave the Taliban refuge”.
Such background can be shorter or longer according to the topic you are reporting on.
If the material is to cover the state structure of Afghanistan, the focus should be on comparing the Constitution of the country legally in force since 2004 with the draft Constitution that de facto authorities proposed and then abandoned.
It is also important to note that Afghanistan is a party to several international conventions, such as the Convention Against Torture and Other Forms of Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment (1984), the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979), the International Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (1965), the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989), and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006). In addition, the country ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966), the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture (2002), the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict (2000), the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution, and child pornography (2000). Explore the report describing the impact of the situation on human rights.
It is necessary to use the links to these documents in the context of human rights reporting.
Visual Design of the Materials
When using visuals, such as illustrative photos or collages, it is important to consider the nuances of traditional dress that identify different groups. If you want to show a group of Afghan men wearing dastmols (Persian: دستمال) – traditional headscarves, you need to know that these are most often soft-textured, black, grey, white, brown, mixed tones of these colours, or brown and turquoise scarves in a checked pattern.
The group of people from the de facto government can be identified by the white or black turbans on their heads. If it is not possible to find original photos, search for such illustrations.
A man wearing a red and white chequered scarf of hard texture represents Arabic or Middle Eastern style and the use of such an illustration would be wrong.
When designing visuals for the material on women’s issues, it is correct to refer to a woman’s head and face garment in the Afghan dialect as chodari (Persian: چادری) rather than burqa. It is most often a blue-coloured garment, but other colours are also found.
