Moscow, November 13,1995

On May 15 and September 25 Kazakhstan TV company and the Totem TV and radio company demonstrated documentary films on the shootings of the offenders sentenced to the death penalty. Millions of the spectators saw the reporting of the death penalty in details with the comment of an employer of the press centre of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The filming was organised by Kazakhstan Ministry of Internal Affairs and approved by the Office of Nursultan Nazarbaev, the President of Kazakhstan, and the General-Prosecutor's Office. And what is more Nursultan Nazarbaev, the President did not condemn the demonstration f shootings but said at one of his press conferences that he did not consider the demonstration of the action of official violence as anti-humane. Garifulla Utebaev, a deputy Procurator-General, thinks that the reporting shown on May 15 is not the violation of article 5 Kazakhstan Law On press and other mass media because it was shown "with the aim to inform the public on the real execution of the dea

th sentence".

Many Kazakhstan mass media published critical articles after the first demonstration but the authorities decided to repeat "the action of punishment", without thinking of the moral or violation of the base clauses of republican and international legal documents.

The complication of the situation is that Kazakhstan is not a participant in even such base documents on human rights as the Pact on Civil and Political Rights. What is more, article 12 of Kazakhstan Constitution does not speak about the possibility to use the standards of international law to recognise and defend human rights.

But Kazakhstan is a member of the United Nations Organisation, so it is obliged to respect the articles of this organisation's code where the state-members confirmed their faith in the main human rights, dignity and value of human person. Kazakhstan is also the OSCE member and so is obliged to observe the clauses of its document on human measurement.

It is partly said in the Document of Copenhagen meeting of the OSCE Conference on Human Measurement taking place in 1990 that the states-participants confirm their obligations to prohibit cruel, inhumane or humiliating treatment or punishments. The states also confirmed the obligations to take effective administrative or legal measures to prevent this experience and punishment for it.

The states stressed that "no exceptional circumstances may justify the tortures including any activity causing moral or physical pain a person to punish he/she for the action made by him/her or by the third person <...> of frighten the third person <...> when the pain or suffer is made by an official or with an official's instigation, or with officials' knowledge and approval".

In this case the matter is not the punishment itself but the fact of its demonstration on TV because the exceptions concerning the pain or suffer made in the course of legal actions or accidentally cannot be applied there. These circumstances were confirmed in Paris Charter for New Europe in 1990.

So, the demonstration of the death penalty on TV does not correspond to the aims proclaimed by the states-OSCE members and violates the obligations taken by Kazakhstan in connection with its membership in this Organisation.

The Constitution of Kazakhstan also contains the clauses which are violated with the demonstration of the death penalty on TV. In accordance with article 12 of the Constitution namely the human rights determine the application of laws and other legal acts. Article 17 of the Constitution prohibits the tortures and other cruel and humiliating treatment. Article 20 prohibits the propaganda of cruelty and violence. The same standard is in article 5 of the Law On press and other mass media.

We call all the states, public and human rights organisations to condemn the activities of Kazakhstan authorities abusing the freedom of press.