This Toolkit has been created on the basis of the key findings obtained in the framework of the Search for Common Ground (Search) "Social Media for De-Radicalization in Kyrgyzstan: A Model for Central Asia’s” pilot project funded by the Bureau of Counterterrorism, US Department of State. The project is based on two parts: a participatory approach, focused on UN Resolution 22501, and a professional approach aimed at creating and conducting social media campaigns in Kyrgyzstan.
Harlem Desir, OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media visited Kyrgyzstan at the end of December 2018. His country visit dedicated to the 1st Regional Conference of Representatives of the Judicial Branch of Central Asia. Its theme is ensuring freedom of speech and the media in the context of the fight against extremism and terrorism. It was attended by international experts. The issues of media freedom were discussed within the framework of designated measures to counter extremism in the Central Asian states.
In an interview with 24.kg news agency, Harlem Dezir told how the vague wordings in the laws affected journalists and why freedom of speech should not be limited.
— We understand the importance and the need to counter the incitement of ethnic hatred, the spread of various kinds of extremist materials. But at the same time, we also recall the importance of respecting freedom of speech and the media. For example, at the conference we discussed particularly problematic issues in the legislation. In some countries, the laws have rather vague notions of extremism and extremist materials.
— How does this affect journalists?
— There are precedents in the states of the region, when both individual journalists and news outlets in general were persecuted or closed on the basis of rather vague and imprecise definitions. And we discuss with the judges how to ensure work in this direction to be carried out in accordance with the commitments that the countries of Central Asia as OSCE members have assumed.
— What specifically do you recommend?
— We discuss the issue of the implementation of the international covenant on political and civil rights in general, in particular, part 2 of article 119. This section regulates the circumstances that relate to media freedom.
— Who else have you discussed these issues with?
— I met with the head of the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court, deputies of the relevant committee of the Parliament. In addition, on the eve of my visit to Kyrgyzstan, in the framework of the meeting of Foreign Ministers of the OSCE states in Milan, I had a meeting with the new Foreign Affairs Minister, Chingiz Aidarbekov. We talked about the reforms being carried out in the Kyrgyz Republic and about the protection of the media.
— Are there any risks for Central Asian journalists due to imperfect legislation?
— Yes, there are. I shared a number of risks that my organization and I see. It’s about the interpretation of the legislation on the protection of the reputation of certain categories of officials.
— How do you assess the current level of freedom of speech in Kyrgyzstan? How has it changed over the past year?
— If you look at Kyrgyzstan, there have been many changes even for the last month. I hope that they will be aimed at ensuring the development of a democratic course and freedom of speech. I welcome the fact that a number of lawsuits filed on behalf of the president against journalists have been withdrawn. This case suggests that you need to learn from what happened, to evolve and change the legislation on the basis of these cases.
During the meetings with my Kyrgyz colleagues, I mentioned article 299 of the Criminal Code. It is obvious that there is a need for further joint work in this area. In addition, there are rules in the law that impose self-censorship on journalists. This position needs to be changed.
— What are other cases you draw attention of the authorities to?Restriction of media freedom is unworkable solution. Instead, it is necessary to give the media freedom for development to such a level when the public will trust them.
Harlem Desir
— We are concerned about the strange traffic accident involving Inga Sikorskaya. We would like to have a full investigation of this case. We raised the issue with journalist Elnura Alkanova, who was accused of divulging bank secrecy. We welcome the fact that claims have been dropped.
We very much welcomed the fact that claims against 24.kg news agency and journalist Kabai Karabekov were withdrawn.
Harlem Desir
— Since we started talking about access to information, what about access to information of journalists from Central Asian countries?
— I will not compile a ranking. But there is a large number of countries with too many restrictions regarding the access of journalists to information. At the same time, we see an increasing number of complaints from the authorities that journalists, when covering topics of public interest, do it without a sufficient degree of credibility.
In this regard, we advise our colleagues from the branches of government to facilitate access to information, including to how government decisions are made. This will help ensure sufficient share of objectivity.
This can be achieved with the help of Open Government, when the data on the work of the Cabinet of Ministers are publicly available. There is a large reserve for work in this sphere in most countries of the region.The state is obliged to make information accessible to both journalists and ordinary citizens.
Harlem Desir
Inga Sikorskaia, independent journalist, human rights activist, program director for School of Peacemaking and Media Technology in Central Asia injured in the strange car accident.
School of Peacemaking and Media Technology in CA hereby expresses concern about the traffic accident that occurred on November 24, 2018 in Bishkek with I.Sikorskaia, who was hospitalized with head injuries at the Bishkek National Hospital.
Currently, she is undergoing outpatient treatment.
On November 24, 2018, a Namba Comfort taxi driver of Daewoo Ravon R3 with number plate 01 KG1274H, cab 7992, arrived at her call and had to take her from Kensuiskaya Street/ Intergelpo to K.Akiev/Toktogul Street. For unknown reason driver changed the route to a longer one, at the intersection of K. Akiev and Sydykov Streets rammed deliberately into a white car parked on the right-hand side of the road.
"I was sitting in the back seat on the right and when we turned to K. Akiev Street, I saw that our car was going straight to the car parked on the right-hand side of the road,” the victim said. "I was clearly going to ram into it. Although the taxi driver had a few seconds to swerve (since the left-hand side of the road was empty), he didn’t make any measure to avoid the accident and kept on driving and thus put my life at risk and the accident occurred.”
The taxi started rolling side over side and then immediately stopped. As a result, Inga Sikorskaia hit her head on the roof of the car a few times, hit the seat with her left shoulder and the door with her right hand. Then she fainted.
"When I woke up, some people were standing by me (they turned out to be passers-by), they were feeling my pulse and trying to bring me round, looking for ammonia in the driver’s first aid kit,” Sikorskaia said. "Two girls called an ambulance 103, and also dialled the first incoming number from my phone, which was lying under my feet, it was Interfax agency journalist Natalia Liubeznova and asked her to come urgently. Then I went faint again.”
According to Natalia Liubeznova, who arrived immediately to the place of accident, the taxi driver who was standing near the car said he didn’t "remember anything”.
The victim woke up when the ambulance arrived and took her to the emergency neurotrauma department of the National Hospital, where she was examined and administered treatment.
On November 26, 2018, the staff of the School of Peacemaking visited the police control room of National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (GUOBDD), where they were told that a case was filed on this accident. The case was given to investigator Samudin and they gave a telephone number to the staff.
The staff have failed to meet the investigator at the time of publication.
Although the victim wrote a detailed statement with all the facts, we tried to hand it over to the investigator, called him on November 26, he said he was not there at the moment and we should come on November 27 from 8 to 17. The next day, after some medical treatment, Sikorskaia accompanied by her assistant, arrived at GUOBDD at 11.50 and called him out of the car, but the investigator rudely said,
"Listen, dear, am I a robot? Can’t I have my lunch? It’s lunch time now, come back at 2 p.m.”
When we said we could leave the statement in the police control room for him to take it later, the investigator said, "No one will accept it or hand it over to me. Don’t you understand that I am having a lunch?”
In this regard, on November 28, 2018, we sent the statement to the investigative department of GUOBDD of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Kyrgyz Republic by registered mail hoping it would reach the addressee.
School of Peacemaking and Media Technology in CA hereby asks the investigative authorities to carry out a fair investigation of the accident, in which Inga Sikorskaia, journalist, human rights activist, a program director, media trainer, researcher known in Central Asia and other countries, was injured. Her activities are aimed at the promotion of the freedom of expression, investigative journalism, encouraging diversity, countering intolerance and discrimination in the media and on the internet, protection of minority rights. She is a media professional, she spent seven years as a senior editor for Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan at the Institute for War and Peace Reporting Central Asia.
Since 2017, I.Sikoskaia has been under pressure for her professional activities. Kyrgyz authorities blacklisted Sikorskaia to control her movement abroad. From April 2017, she was closely checked at the border 19 times. Moreover, in June, 2018, after such complicated check, her photo in international passport was damaged ripped off.
This is the statement by the participants
of the laboratory "Political space for
CSOs: democracy + human rights= sustainable development”.
The event was held on November 15, 2018 within the framework of the XII International Festival of Human Rights Documentary Films in Bishkek.
Participants were welcomed by Dimitris Christopoulos, president of the International Federation for Human Rights, FIDH (France), who arrived in Kyrgyzstan specifically at the festival, official meetings and interactions with the civil society.
Over 30 participants of the workshop were human rights activists, leaders of CSOs, experts, representatives of the Ministry of Justice of the Kyrgyz Republic, activists from Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Italy, France, Czech Republic who worked in the four groups: "Freedom of expression”, "Freedom of assembly”, "Freedom of association”, "Participation of women and migrant workers”. These working groups were created for a discussion of promotion of key liberties required to make political space function and to achieve Sustainable Development Goals. Experts delivered their reports on the situation of these freedoms amid current realities and civil society issues in Central Asia.
"The situation of the freedom of expression is similar in all the three countries – Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan,” Inga Sikorskaya, programme director of the School of Peacemaking and Media Technology in CA (Kyrgyzstan), said presenting her speech on "Freedom of expression in CA: challenges, trends, solutions”. "The main risks are broad interpretation of the laws on inciting hatred, confusion of this interpretation with extremism, which allows prosecuting independent activists, journalists, human rights defenders; growth of hate against socially disapproved groups in our countries, as well as the constantly high level of propaganda, which affects the shaping of public opinion and public discourse.”
For a few hours, working groups were discussing and developing recommendations and action plans. As a result, every team represented their packages of solutions.
Muattar Khaydarova, an expert from Tajikistan, speaking about the trends and risks in the sphere of freedom of association, announced the recommendations worked out by the group of participants specifying the need to improve the laws on financing NGOs from internal sources, emergency adoption of law on charitable organisations, stopping the use of tax law abuse as a leverage on the civil society in Tajikistan.
Gulshaiyr Abdirasulova, a representative of Kylym Shamy (Kyrgyzstan), introduced the audience to the peculiarities of legal proceedings related to the right to freedom of peaceful assembly. The working group with her participation suggested a series of steps to improve of this sphere. In particular, the group recommended developing and introducing a programme on the compliance with the freedom of peaceful assembly into training modules for judges, implementing the process of evaluation of judges and law-enforcement bodies regarding the human rights knowledge, shaping the practice of decision-making by the UN Human Rights Committee, an entity supervising the implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in member states.
Aina Shormonbayeva, president of International Legal Initiative Public Foundation (Kazakhstan) presented recommendations of her group "Participation of women and migrant workers”.
"The governments and the parliament must respond to public interest and demands, which is the key principle of the open political space for CSOs”, Shormonbayeva said. Residents of villages Min Kush, Zhumgal district of Naryn oblast, Kyrgyzstan, arrived specifically to take part in this workshop because they live in an environmentally fragile area due to uranium mining implications, where people suffer from diseases and poverty. The activists recommended that the authorities should handle this situation as soon as possible. Particularly, they recommended developing a special mechanism of enforcement of the decision to relocate the residents of 23 houses in the village of Min Kush.
Ermek Baisalov,an editor of analytical portal CABAR.asia, emphasised the importance of interaction between the expert community and civil society organisations in Central Asia. The expert capacity is a serious basis for joint solution of issues, he emphasised.
The four working groups suggested their action plans to promote the stated freedoms that are needed by the countries to achieve Sustainable Development Goals. Some of suggestions were to obtain the decision of the Plenum of Supreme Court regarding the interpretation of articles related to the incitement of hatred and concerning the freedom of expression in media and on the internet, to adopt the anti-discrimination law of the Kyrgyz Republic in order to protect the rights and freedoms of diverse groups in the society, to adopt the law on charitable organisations, joint work to reduce unemployment and labour migration, to introduce 40 per cent quota for the representation of women in government, to introduce the practice of public hearing of public meeting law enforcement, to encourage the use of UN human rights monitoring mechanisms: use of specific UN procedures, individual appeals to the UN Human Rights Committee, appeals to special UN rapporteurs.
All the recommendations will be sent to the government, parliament, international organisations, media outlets.
The laboratory was organised by the School of Peacemaking and Media Technology in CA jointly with the human rights movement Bir Duino Kyrgyzstan and the representative office of theInstitute for War & Peace Reporting (IWPR) in CA.
A photo report of the laboratory is available on the official page of the XII International Festival of Human Rights Documentary Films on Facebook: http://catcut.net/JWhx
Alina Amilaeva, programme assistant of the School of Peacemaking and Media Technology, Kazakhstan.
The article was prepared by the School of Peacemaking and Media Technology in CA, an official media campaign partner to the XII International Festival.
Statement from Women’s Learning Partnership (WLP) for the 2018 International Festival of Documentary Films on Human Rights Hosted by Bir Duino See video here
How does equality start in the family?
Family relationships—the most intimate and fundamental of all human relationships-- are the foundation for power relations in our societies. Starting from birth, boys are told to be courageous, to take risks, and to be innovative; girls are told to focus their energies on matters within the home, to be submissive and not take up space, and to cede control of their decision-making power.
Discriminatory legislation and cultural practices reinforce this inequality. In the Global South, women face laws that determine their right to choose their partner, travel, hold a job, choose their place of residence, access their inheritance, or make decisions about their bodies and/or their children. In the Global North, they must contend with laws limiting reproductive rights, equal pay for equal work, maternity leave, and adequate childcare. Such legislation strips women of power within the family unit, limiting their opportunities and making them susceptible to violence and human rights violations.
The unequal status conferred upon women and girls within the confines of the family robs them of their agency, hindering their ability to reach their full potential in education, livelihood, and civic and political life. To create equality for women in all these spaces, we must begin with the family.
Why is this topic important and relevant in the world today?
WLP partners have been working to amend inequality in the family in their respective countries for years. They have led campaigns for change on issues most important to them, such as equal citizenship rights in Lebanon, honor crimes in Jordan, land rights in Morocco, and abortion rights in Brazil. By conducting research, raising awareness among the public and policymakers, and empowering women to be inclusive leaders, they have amplified the voices of women on the ground and identified grassroots priorities around family law reform.
Now, in our globalized society with increasing conflicts and various forms of social and economic crises, we believe more than ever in the necessity of an international movement to address inequality in the family and its repercussions in public spaces within societal institutions. Although the circumstances are specific to each cultural context, women and girls in all parts of the world face fundamentally similar challenges that stem from a lack of power, respect, and opportunity within the family unit. By leveraging the linkages among countries and building global solidarity, we can more effectively tackle these problems and transform our communities and societies.
What does the research say about inequality in the family in different countries?
WLP conducted extensive research on the topic
of discriminatory family laws and feminist advocacy to reform them. Eight
country case studies from Brazil, India, Iran, Lebanon, Nigeria, Palestine,
Turkey, and Senegal examined diverse approaches to activism. Essays and expert
interviews from women leaders in Jordan, Egypt, and Morocco provided additional
contextual analyses and firsthand accounts of successful advocacy
campaigns. Some of the main conclusions
from WLP’s research effort include:
·Family laws, whether stemming from religious or secular justifications, are social and political constructs that can be changed.
·Because the reactions, obstacles, and outcomes to changes in family laws are unpredictable, it’s important for advocates to monitor and evaluate these developments.
·Advocacy campaigns should reflect the cultural, social, and political environments in which they are being conducted. They should adopt a multi-pronged approach: building coalitions, finding allies from different stakeholder groups, and influencing public opinion.
·Building coalitions among diverse women’s groups, as well as with other civil society groups, will provide greater legitimacy to women’s demands. These coalitions should seek allies within and outside the state in order to be most effective.
·By connecting with women’s organizations outside of their countries and engaging in transnational networking around common issues, women’s groups can shape an international policy environment friendly to family law reform. This in turn will likely influence national policy debates, putting pressure on national lawmakers to consider reform.
What is WLP’s strategy for change on the global level?
With their collective experience, WLP partners and their allies are initiating a campaign to pave the way for reform. The Equality Starts in the Family campaign will advocate for gender equality within and outside the home so that women and girls are afforded equal rights and opportunities in all walks of life.
The campaign is designed on the premise that any solution to gender discrimination has to address both legislation and cultural understandings for change to be implemented. As such, the campaign focuses on both reforming discriminatory family laws that are the foundation of the unequal status of women and girls in the family, and changing the culturally determined structures, roles, and beliefs that perpetuate gender discrimination.
Together with activists, scholars, policymakers, INGOs, grassroots organizations, and concerned individuals, WLP will produce and distribute tools for advocacy; conduct culturally-contextualized workshops on advocacy in this area; raise awareness among the public and policymakers on the ways in which discriminatory family laws perpetuate violence and inequality; and raise the visibility of the activists working to reform such laws.
The 12th International Festival of Human Rights
Documentary Films "Bir Duino-Kyrgyzstan” to be held in Bishkek on November
12-16, 2018 will present twenty-four vivid and striking films that focus on the
issues of the most vulnerable groups: women, children, migrants, unemployed,
discriminated-against people and people with no access to fair justice, people
living in environmentally hazardous regions and suffering from diseases and
poverty. The topics is diverse, yet they are common in that they promote decent
life for everyone for sustainable development, which
efficiency is based on a new format of dialogues, partnership with the
government and private business, as well as innovative approaches to the
solution of vulnerable groups’ problems.
Watch the trailer of festival films!
The School of Peacemaking and Media Technology is the official media partner of the festival.
This innovative approach was suggested by Inga Sikorskaia, director of School of Peacemaking and Media Technology on October 26 in Astana (Kazakhstan) at the conference "New challenges and approaches to regional and global security in Central Asia”.
Based on researches and proprietary developments of training programmes, the expert has emphasised that one of the methods of youth de-radicalisation can be education and raising awareness of the younger generation, teaching it the skills of information literacy, development of critical thinking and forming new media culture. This helps them better understand the legitimacy of extremist views and their narratives, be resistant to propaganda.
"When countering radicalisation, our young people must have skills of perceiving conflict-sensitive content and rules of responding to it, must be able to detect hate speech, which is a negative content, in information consumed, and illegal information, extremist propaganda and media xenophobia that leads to violence,” I.Sikorskaia said.
The new media culture is a special type of culture in the digital age, when disintermediation prevails, no boundaries between traditional and social media information exist, which has caused the new type of thinking that is characterised by information awareness, skills of its creation and distribution. These two aspects make us look at media culture at a new angle and use it as a tool of deradicalization.
The main five elements of the new media culture are: culture of information consumption, dissemination, perception, analysis and media creativity. Mastering the culture of information consumption is a key factor that shows how audience perceive distributed information, including radical narratives, his level of critical perception and level of trust to information received and its further use.
According to I.Sikorskaia, the culture of information consumption enables development of further skills of media creativity and easy orientation in the rich information environment. "A young user that has all of the above skills can independently deconstruct radical narratives in information that contains extremist propaganda, and can help his peers to do that,” she emphasised, "while good education and good competencies will help create conditions that will hinder the ideology of violent extremism, its distribution and improve resistance of students to radical narratives.”
It can be achieved via a content-based aspect of education, introduction of flexible modules and teaching techniques.
The expert has presented a package of recommendations, some of which are to separate training and retraining of teachers in the standards and techniques of using skills of information literacy and new media culture, inclusion of five elements of new media culture and information literacy into general syllabuses, providing access to media education to vulnerable groups exposed to recruitment, via flexible modules designed to motivate and involve young people in projects to be implemented in their communities and some others.
Since now ideology is used by recruiters via new media and internet, the knowledge of creation, receipt, distribution, critical analysis, verification of information and communications in the digital sphere must become mandatory.
The event was held with participation of some experts from Central Asian region, Afghanistan, Europe and the United States, scholars, representatives of the diplomatic corps with the support of the OSCE Programme Office.
Over 450 documentary films from different countries of the world have been
demonstrated during 11 festivals held in Kyrgyzstan, including documentaries
from Eastern European and Central Asian countries. All films have been designed
to raise legal awareness and encourage directors that make films about acute
social problems and human rights.
Tolekan Ismailova, leader of human rights movement Bir Duino Kyrgyzstan, founder of film festival, has made examples of past festivals that emphasised the importance of such events in Kyrgyzstan.
Photo of the 11th international festival of
documentary films
Tolekan Ismailova:
It was the 2010 festival, when we witnessed the dependency of our government from foreign policy. They prohibited the screening of documentary "10 conditions of love” about the fate of the prominent human rights activist, head of the World Uighur Congress, Rabiya Kadyr. Ex-head of the presidential administration of the Kyrgyz Republic, Emil Kaptagaev, said that it was the intelligence agencies that prohibited the screening saying the embassy of the People’s Republic of China in the Kyrgyz Republic was dissatisfied with it.
We appreciate the visits of our leading experts from various countries of the world, and we were especially impressed by the visit of Igor Blazhevich, ex-director of international festival of human rights documentary films "One World”, from Prague who came twice. He emphasised our festival was a folk festival! It involves active young people and leaders. We have the future! They are creative and free from stigma. Since the festivals topics always raise the most painful problems of vulnerable people, we are always aware of what happens in the world and we have a chance to prevent conflicts and focus on high principles and standards of human rights and liberties in terms of sustainable development.
And the third important thing is not only about
watching and discussing films, but also about a wide platform for partnership
and solidarity, sharing experiences, civic bridging. The key thing here is the
development of the Kyrgyz language as all documentaries come with captions in
different languages. This is a festival
for everyone!
During the 12thinternational festival of human rights documentary films "Bir Duino
Kyrgyzstan-2018”, innovative laboratories and master classes will be held on topical
issues in the framework of Sustainable Development Goals consistent with a human
rights-based approach. Current global challenges of political and religious
fundamentalism, violent extremism and terrorism have become a threat to public
security, obstacles to peaceful co-existence and barriers to sustainable
development for many countries in the world.
The labs will be held in November 13 to 15, 2018 in Bishkek.
The participants of events will be working over the tools and recommendations on empowerment of children, labour rights, cases of torture in penal setting.
The Global Storm: Growing Fundamentalism and Threats to the Future laboratory will focus on the issues of equality and human dignity; human rights defenders will discuss the financial literacy issues and the impact of Kyrgyzstan’s foreign debt on sustainable development. Jointly with the Bishkek mayor’s office Agency for Development, a workshop "Cities to Cities: The Role of Citizens, Partnership for Development” will be organised; while the Forum of Women’s NGOs, together with other organisations, will discuss "How to become a master of your own country?” by applying global experience of sustainable development with a human rights-based approach.
Master class on innovations in documentary films will be held by leading documentary filmmakers from Eastern Europe and Central Asia, and the laboratory of the Coalition for Equality will focus on raising awareness about the principles of equality and non-discrimination.
The last day of the festival will be dedicated to the development of political space for civil society organisations. The School of Peacemaking and Media Technology, together with key partners, will hold this workshop based on the following principle: democracy + human rights + fair and open government and equal partnership = sustainable development.
"The format of labs this year differs from the previous year’s as they are focused on topical issues,” said Lira Asylbek, director of Alternative Centre. - Workshops give an opportunity to key experts, representatives of civil society, CSOs, and authorities to focus on key present-day challenges, to understand what and who impedes the implementation of human rights, what happens around, how to mitigate these threats, which countries have successful outcomes of positive changes, and how to build equal partnership with the government, business entities for positive changes.”
Sharing experience, opinions, joint work over social problems will help find best innovative approaches and solutions. IT will also play its unique role in this process.
The programme of laboratories is here
More Information about the human development configuration
People: Human development focuses on improving people’s lives,
not just on the assumption that economic development automatically leads to social
welfare for all. Growth of income is seen as a means for development, not the outcome.
Opportunities: Human development gives people more freedom to live an
important life. In fact, it means to develop people’s skills and to enable them
to use these skills. For example, training helps shape skills, but they will be
useless if a person doesn’t have a job or their skills don’t fit the local
labour market needs. Human development is based on three components: a person
must live a long, healthy and creative life, must be well-informed and must
have access to resources that ensure a decent life.
Right of choice: Human development is based on a wide choice. People are given opportunities; however, they don’t have to use them.
No one can guarantee happiness to a person; every person makes their own choice based on their own decision. The process of development – human development – must at least create an environment for people, individually and collectively, to enable the development of their potential in full and to create reasonable opportunities for them to live a productive and creative life.
The School of Peacemaking and Media Technology is official partner of Fest-2018 on media campaign.
The 12th International Festival of Human Rights Documentary Films 2018 "For human dignity!” is dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights will be held under the slogan "Today we work for tomorrow!”.
The annual festival organised by Bir Duino-Kyrgyzstan will take place in Bishkek in November 12-16, 2018.
55 films of 18 countries such as Kyrgyzstan, Norway, Sweden, China, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Russia, Germany, Poland, Belgium, USA, Australia, India, United Kingdom, Canada, Ukraine, Paraguay, Republic of South Africa have been submitted to the festival. The committee has selected 24 most vivid and striking films.
This year, the scenarios of documentary films focus on the problems of children, women and vulnerable groups, on torture in closed institutions, on migrants, discriminated-against people who have no access to fair justice. The films also tell about citizens who live in environmental hazardous regions and suffer from diseases and poverty. These topics is diverse, yet they are common in that they promote decent life for everyone.
This year, the idea of the festival has been supported by the Bishkek Mayor’s Office, local authorities. The films will be shown for free to anyone in every district of the city, in cinemas Manas, Rossiya, Oktyabr, Ala-Too. Following every film, producers will meet the audience to talk with them and answer their questions. Together with the audience, the films will be discussed with the characters of films, representatives of authorities, experts and journalists. All recommendations by results of this discussions will be submitted to government agencies, national human rights institutions and spread via solidarity networks.
On the last day of the festival, non-competition films will be shown that reveal various discrimination issues and social injustice faced by communities with intersecting identities.
"We are proud to have this festival for several years – this is not a project, but a joint volunteer work of likeminded people, activists, artistic people and human rights defenders,” Tolekan Ismailova, director of human rights movement Bir Duino Kyrgyzstan, said. "Today, in search of new approaches, innovative ways, we try to make an efficient contribution to the Sustainable Development Strategy with the human rights agenda and gender equality.”
The film festival takes place during new initiatives by the Kyrgyzstan’s authorities aimed at supporting small and medium enterprises in regions, attracting investments, and stepping up the efforts of financial institutions and funds that provide loans for projects address economic development and job creation.[1]
10 innovative labs and master classes will be held within the festival in terms of sustainable development goals, whose achievement is possible only through partnership with the government and private business, as well as through creative approaches to solution of vulnerable groups’ problems. The labs will create a platform for civil education, encouragement of citizens’ participation in decision-making, will contribute to the new development policies, including at the domestic level, promoting the good governance principles in the Kyrgyz Republic[2]. These workshops will be carried out by prominent foreign and regional experts under the auspices of national and international partners of Bir Duino Kyrgyzstan. And a Kazakhstan-based media group Partizanskoye Kino [Guerrilla filmmaking] will share its experience during the master class for documentary film makers.
For information: The international festival of human rights documentary film is an active civic platform that has been raising key issues of rights and liberties in a changing world since 2007. This is a unique festival in Central Asia that provides a great opportunity to discuss documentary truth in the human rights sphere by involving filmmakers from different countries.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which 70th anniversary is being celebrated this year, was adopted by the UN General Assembly on December 10, 1948[3]. This document declares interdependence of civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights that every person has.
The School of Peacemaking and Media Technology is the official media partner of the festival.
For more information see: www.birduino.kg
https://www.facebook.com/birduinofest/?notif_id=1540181629171346¬if_t=page_admin&ref=notif
E-mail: birduinokyrgyzstan@gmail.com тел: +996312 383330
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.
