Liza CHINYBEKOVA
BISHKEK, Sept 5
(Specially for THE GLOBE)
For more than a week a scandal with the most popular newspaper �Vecherny Bishkek� with the biggest circulation is going on. The brief matter is as follows: the tax inspection checking the organisation �Kyrgyzpochtasy� found out that the JSC publishing house �Vecherny Bishkek� had a contract with �Kyrgyzpochtasy� for supply of newspapers, and did not pay the tax on sale of these newspapers. According to the results of the check, a serious penalty was calculated.
An inspector who came to the chief editor of the newspaper Alexander Kim to check the company, was not adopted to the bookkeepers� records. Before his third visit the tax inspector asked the tax policy for a help. The latter laid a criminal case on the fact of impeding the tax check, hence Alexander Kim as questioned as an eyewitness. Simultaneously with this, the deputy of the chief editor, a famous journalist and one of the shareholders of the newspaper Vladimir Kozlinsky was dismissed with a scandal. At the press conference he along with Kabai Karabekov, the population�s favourite journalist of �Vecherny Bishkek� (who is leaving the newspaper himself) announced that recently both internal and external policies were changing in the newspaper. In particular, the journalists were against of numerous materials supporting the former governor of Bishkek Kulov.
At the same time, despite the events in Batken, almost all pages of the daily newspaper �Vecherny Bishkek� are devoted to how the President�s administration is pressing the newspaper through the tax inspection and how the tax inspection infringes the laws and is ready almost with special forces and handcuffs to demand from the team to deliver up the chief editor to put him into a prison, from which he will never go.
Alexander Kim is either ill or escaping from the tax policy, appeals to the international community, publishing letters in the first page of his newspaper that he is pressed by the state, about infringements of democratic standards and human rights, about freedom of speech. He explained everything that the President�s administration had decided to misappropriate the most popular and objective newspaper.
Why does the chief editor transform an ordinary financial infringement into a serious political case? What for this farce is intended? As it is not profitable for the chief editor to reveal another infringement (unpaid taxes on resale of the building where the company is located). Looking at this situation from outside, you unavoidably think that there is no policy. In fact there is policy, but it is another kind of policy.
While analysing the activity of the newspaper for the last period, we come to the following conclusions. Once the newspaper chose the course to support the former governor Kulov (this was caused by the opposition to the previous governor Boris Silaev, who is today the deputy of the Prime Minister of Kyrgyzstan). Silaev, who was sick and tired with attacks of �Vecherny Bishkek� promoted the establishment of the newspaper �Utro Bishkeka�. He is considered to be the author of the motto of this newspaper �Morning is wiser than evening�.
After the appointment of Kulov, the relations between �Vecherny Bishkek� and the governor�s administration completely changed. After Kulov�s scandal dismissal and his announcement that he was going to learn Kyrgyz language (i.e. he was going to be nominated to the President), in each issue �Vecherny Bishkek� published articles which are named by people as �Kulov�s�. When Kulov established his own party �Ar-Namys�, he publicly announced that his party would not have any edition. That time nobody paid any attention to his words. Only now it can be understood that he does not need to establish any edition, as he has already one. This is a very serious stake in the next pre-election Marathon. It is the most numerous newspaper, which does not need any promotion. But how can �Vecherny Bishkek� explain the population and itself (i.e. unwise personnel of the editorial staff, especially journalists) such an abrupt change, as the newspaper repeatedly announced its independence and sympathy to Askar Akaev?
Then the tax inspection comes. It seems that if there were no tax inspection, the same scenario would be applied to, but with other heroes. The authorities are pressing the population�s favourite newspaper. There is a pretence (as in this situation they need any formal, but logical reason) to show the authorities their back. The newspaper is successfully doing this. The election will be held soon. And the future candidate to the President has a powerful weapon, �Vecherny Bishkek�, a newspaper, to which word the common Kyrgyz person has got used to trust completely. This common person does not suspect, to what manipulations he will be a subject with the help of his favourite newspaper. But he is already regretting that about ten most popular journalists have left the newspaper. Even if the newspaper�s reputation is spoilt, it still has the name and a great number of people, who believe to the false information published in the newspaper. The policy is still the policy. Today no reader of any newspaper can avoid the policy.
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