Participants of the roundtable conference on interaction between the media and the authorities in Jalalabad on November 30 agreed that both free-lance journalists and personnel of government-sponsored and -controlled media outlets needed protection in Kyrgyzstan.

Over a dozen journalists were assaulted in Kyrgyzstan in the last twelve months, one of them was murdered. Journalists are leaving Kyrgyzstan, the country once hailed as "an island of democracy" in Central Asia, for political motives nowadays.

Those present at the roundtable conference stated that the time when free-lance journalists had to take care was over. Even the staff of state-owned media outlets do not feel safe anymore.

Dijdor Chief Editor Ulugbek Abdusalamov divides journalists in Kyrgyzstan into three categories: those who work for state-owned media outlets, who promote interests of various forces and groups of society, and finally free-lancers (these latter are usually involved with foreign media outlets).

"Journalists in the first group are the least risk-prone because they are always under the state control and because the population views them as civil servants," Abdusalamov explained. "Journalists in the latter two categories have many more reasons to fear for their safety which the state has been neglecting."

Validity of this categorization was challenged by Baktykan Ajymamatova of the national TV and radio corporation and Orozaly Karasartov, Chief of the PR Department of the Jalalabad regional administration. Ajymamatova said she had been manhandled by protesters at some rally or other not long ago and her colleague from the national TV network had been assaulted, battered, and put under pressure so that he eventually left the country altogether which made him the first journalist to become a political refugee.

Akyikat chief editor (this newspaper was founded by the regional administration) complained of the situation with state media outlets. He said subsidies from the state amounted to only one fifth of the newspaper's budget (1.5 million soms) but the editorial office was actually denied even a reasonably free hand with the money. "They inventoried and audited us on no less than eleven occasions in the last several years," he said. "Auditors accused us of the gas cost overrun to the amount of 1,800 soms (about $50) last time, but it is the money we earned ourselves that we are spending."

"Unfortunately, we were too late to begin thinking in terms of personal security," Abdusalamov admitted. "It happened only with assassination of our young and gifted colleague Alisher Saipov."

"As a matter of fact, journalists themselves stir trouble all too frequently with the biased materials they publish," Abdusalamov said. "Publishing these materials, certain newspapers run the risk of fomenting ethnic discord and compromise their own safety."

Abdusalamov referred to Agym, a popular Kyrgyz newspaper, notorious for the use of insulting inflexions in publications on the southern part of Kyrgyzstan populated by ethnic Uzbeks. "This newspaper is being deliberately insulting when it claims that ethnic Uzbeks desire an autonomous status," Abdusalamov said. "It's time the state did something about it."

Discussing interaction between journalists and the local authorities, participants of the roundtable conference decided that a new approach on both sides was needed. Jalil Saparov, Chairman of the Regional Journalist Association, effective interaction between the media and the authorities is impeded by the lack of PR departments in numerous state structures and incompetence of the ones that do exist. Saparov admitted in the meantime that journalists too were insufficiently professional, particularly the ones complaining that state structures were uncooperative. "Not a single journalist has ever brought action for denial of information," Saparov said. "We do not know our rights."

Participants of the roundtable conference agreed to promote adoption of the law on journalistic security and organize personnel training for the media. Chairman of Justice (a human rights organization) Abdumalik Sharipov suggested the use of lawsuits against state structures denying journalists coveted information.

The roundtable conference was organized by the IWPR mission in Kyrgyzstan and Media-Incubator (Foundation for Support of Young Journalists).