Journalists under pressure
Aidan White, General Secretary of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), was one of several prominent people who stayed away, saying the Duvanov case cast a shadow over the conference.
Two lively sessions, chaired by British journalist Peter Preston, a senior figure in the Vienna-based International Press Institute (IPI) and a respected former national newspaper editor, examined the media landscape in Eurasia.
Issues included the wide range of pressures placed on journalists through much of the former Soviet Union and Central Asia, where media ownership increasingly is becoming more concentrated. Is it still possible to exist as an independent media outlet in the region without external constraints?
What responsibility should business take to ensure impartial coverage from their related interests and avoid being accused of using the media as a propaganda tool? What role can human rights and freedom of speech organisations play in resolving the persecution of journalists?
Opening the debate, Peter Preston said: "A lot of people who should have been here are not here because they feel there are cases where proper freedom of journalism is not being upheld… there has been a movement to boycott."
He said they were staying away because they saw no hope and no comfort in coming. "They don't think meetings like this can do any good. They think that, perhaps, they may actually do harm - lending a veneer of respectability to attitudes which, deep down, it's impossible to respect."
Other issues discussed by the panel, with representatives from Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Tajikistan, as well as Ermukhamet Ertysbayev, political advisor to Kazakhstan's President Nazarbayev, included the media as a "scapegoat" in former Soviet republics and other clampdowns on journalists.
"People speak of Sergei Duvanov as a journalist, but to me he is a politician," Ertysbayev said. This brought a riposte from the floor by one delegate who said: "If Duvanov is a politician, then this means politicians can be arrested?"
Panelist Tamara Kaleyeva, president of Kazakhstan's Freedom of Speech Protection Foundation, "Adil Soz", said: "Our country has a very weak civil society and the indicators of corruption are very high… The image of Kazakhstani journalism is deteriorating."
Several speakers from the floor also argued that freedom of the press had deteriorated in Kazakhstan since the First Eurasian Media Forum conference, in 2002, while others made the point that journalists were facing increased pressures all over the world, particularly since the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.
"The western fight against terrorism has made independent journalism much more difficult in the past two years," Peter Preston said.
Nuriddin Karshiboyev, chairman, Tajikistan's National Association of Independent Media, said: "The mass media is always the scapegoat in Tajikistan. They (the authorities) say that Tajiki journalists incited the civil war… It is bad when journalists are subjected to a political struggle."
Another panelist, Azer Hasret, secretary general of the Azerbaijan Journalists Confederation, said: "There are examples of threats (to journalists), illegal detentions, beatings, detentions… economic pressure and even murders throughout the region."
Summing up the debate from the floor, Dariga Nazarbayeva, chairperson of the Forum's Organising Committee and of Kazakhstan's Khabar Agency, said the Duvanov case was a matter of law and not connected with articles that he had written about 'Kazakhgate' - alleged corruption linked to Caspian oil wealth.
Dr Nazarbayeva said the greatest problem was the relatively low level of political culture of both politicians and journalists. "Both need to mature," she said. "We are going through a painful period of growth. It would be surprising if everything was just going smoothly."
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