Kyrgyz TV Viewers Left in the Dark

For the last month, viewers in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek have been unable to watch the popular independent television channel Pyramida. Officials say the problem is merely a technical hitch, while opposition groups and even a parliamentary committee allege political interference.

Pyramida finally came back on air on April 27, a day after international financier George Soros met President Askar Akaev on April 26 and offered to help the station to resume normal broadcasting.

Broadcasts stopped on March 17 when the company's transmission equipment failed. When the repair work was completed a week later, the government's National Communications Agency, NCA, refused to allow Pyramida back on air, claiming the main TV transmitting tower in Bishkek was too dilapidated.

Kubanichbek Begaliev, technical director of the State Radio and Television Network, which is responsible for maintaining the TV tower, explained to IWPR, "The problem here is purely technical. This equipment has been operating since the Fifties and the antennas are very old. It's made of iron and is rusting. All the connections on the side facing the sun have disintegrated and the cables are all damaged."

Begaliev said that allowing Pyramida to re-start broadcast would create interference with transmissions of the state television channel, and could cause an accident.

After it was refused a resumption in its normal transmission rights, the station broadcast a limited service on another frequency that could only be received by a fraction of viewers.

"We're bearing colossal losses, we're losing our advertisers and we've already lost virtually all our viewers," said Pyramida's director-general Andrei Tsvetkov. As a result, he said, the station's 100 staff members are now on unpaid leave, though around 20 were still coming into work on a voluntary basis.

It is not clear what repairs have been carried out to allow transmissions to resume.

Staff at Pyramida are reluctant to ascribe political motives to the problems besetting them. Suggestions that a recent edition of the controversial talk show Nashe Vremya provoked the government into retaliating were rejected by the programme's presenter Aleksandr Kulinsky. At a recent meeting organised by IWPR, he said that many earlier editions of the show had been far more critical of the authorities.

Pyramida's editor-in-chief Elina Chernyavskaya went further, suggesting that "individuals close to the president" could be trying to take advantage of the channel's technical difficulties.

Others have been much bolder in asserting political interference. On April 21, the Coalition of Non-Government Organisations issued a statement accusing the government of denying millions of people the right to unbiased reporting, and of promoting instead a style of broadcasting "designed to turn the public into zombies".

The same day, the Kyrgyz parliament's media committee ordered an independent inquiry into the affair. Kabai Karabekov, chair of the committee, said it was not surprising that people thought there were political reasons for the suspension of broadcasting.

"Without a doubt there is a hidden political motive," parliamentary deputy Nikolai Bailo told IWPR. "They are trying to create an information vacuum prior to the elections. Pyramida is the only channel which has reported reliable information and given the opposition a voice, whereas all the other channels are exclusively pro-government."

Rina Prijivoit, chief political editor of the opposition MSN newspaper, believes that the station was deliberately taken off the air at a time when the country is beginning to prepare for next year's parliamentary and presidential elections.

"In the pre-election period, a television company can use the authority it has over its viewers to lobby for one candidate and discredit another," she said.

Dosali Esenaliev, head of the presidential press-service, denied any suggestion of government interference. "I can state unequivocally that there have been no orders from on high, nor could there be. It is a purely technical problem," he said.

International organisations made it clear this month that they are watching developments closely. Peter Felch, the OSCE's political officer in Bishkek, has voiced concern that the country could be left without independent broadcasters during the election period.

Leila Saralaeva is an independent journalist working in Bishkek.