You're reading: Kazakhstan seeks to deport Ukrainian journalist

Ukrainian journalist and fact-checker Oleksandr Gorohovskyi faces deportation in Kazakhstan, where he came to teach a journalism workshop.

Kazakhstan authorities say he was supposed to get a visa to lead a workshop, while the journalists’ colleagues see it as a part of the authorities’ crackdown on the free press, and say Kazakhstan is borrowing a page from Russia’s book.

Gorohovskyi arrived in the city of Uralsk in Kazakhstan on Sept. 14 without a visa, benefitting from the agreement between Ukraine and Kazakhstan which allows a visa-free stay for up to 90 days.

He was supposed to teach a two-day journalism workshop for local journalists on Sept. 14-15 by invitation of the independent newspaper Uralskaya Nedelya (Ural Week). But as he was teaching on Sept. 15, local police interrupted the workshop.

The police said that the Ukrainian was supposed to get a visa to hold training in Kazakhstan. However, they failed to specify what kind of visa was needed. The visa-free agreement between Ukraine and Kazakhstan doesn’t limit the visa-free stay to private or tourist visits. 

The Ukrainian journalist’s trial will take place on Sept. 17. If found guilty of violating visa conditions, he faces a fine of $6, a 10-day administrative arrest or deportation.

Lukpan Akhmedyarov, the chief editor of the Uralskaya Nedelya and the organizer of the journalism school that brought Gorokhovskyi to Kazakhstan, believes that Gorohovskyi’s case is linked to his newspaper’s criticism of the authorities. 

Gorohovskyi is the chief editor of the Ukrainian website Bez Brehni (Without Lies) that focuses on fact-checking politicians’ statements and claims.

Akhmedyarov invited Gorohovskyi to visit Uralsk and share his experience with the attendees of the journalism school that is held for the second time in the city. 

Financed by grants, the school offers free journalism lessons to anyone interested, including school and college students, journalists and people of other occupations. 

The police officers told Gorohovskyi that they received a phone call about an alleged violation. According to Akhmedyarov, the police said the caller told them “there was a seminar about Ukraine.”

The police said that teaching a workshop counts as a labor activity, which requires a visa – but they failed to specify what kind of visa, Gorohovskyi says.

The journalist came to Uralsk in terms of the visa-free travel that has been in force between Ukraine and Kazakhstan for 16 years. The agreement allows the citizens of the two countries to enter each other’s territories and stay there without visas for up to 90 days.

However, Kazakhstan also issues visas to Ukrainians based on the purpose of their visit – work, business, education.

Gorohovskyi says that he didn’t apply for a work visa because he didn’t come to Kazakhstan to work. The journalism school paid for his travel and accommodation but he didn’t receive an honorarium for the training.

“This is a private visit for the exchange of experience. There was no commercial component, we did not sign a work contract, so it wasn’t a labor activity,” Gorohovskyi told the Kyiv Post.

The journalist said that the police officers pressured him and the organizers during questioning and tried to slip into the report the terms that Gorohovskyi and the organizers didn’t agree with – like calling the training a public gathering.

“The protocol had to be rewritten twice,” the journalist said.

With the help of the event’s organizers, the Ukrainian journalist found a lawyer for his Sept. 17 court hearing.

Akhmedyarov believes that the police launched the case against Gorohovskyi because Uralskaya Nedelya organized his training. 

The chief editor said his newspaper was an independent publication often pressured by the authorities because of their critical stance. He said his was the only newspaper in the region that refused to receive state funding not to compromise their independence.

Akhmedyarov said that there were times when the authorities demanded the local retailers to not sell Uralskaya Nedelya and persuaded the local printing houses to not print the newspaper.

He said that the journalism school was pressured too. According to him, a school student who was going to attend the training was “recommended” to change her mind. The headmaster of the student’s school allegedly received a call from the regional education department advising to talk the student out of visiting the journalism school. 

“What is happening to the school of journalism and to Oleksandr Gorohovskyi is no doubt related to the newspaper. We are like a burr in the saddle to them,” Akhmedyarov told the Kyiv Post.

Oleg Khomenok, the Senior Media Advisor for the Internews Network in Kyiv, who himself frequently travels abroad to give journalism workshops, agreed with Akhmedyarov.

He said that over the last few years, he noticed a significant decrease in the level of freedom and sustainability of the media in Kazakhstan.

Khomenok said he was not aware of a case when a foreign journalist was deported from Kazakhstan. He, however, believed that the country borrowed the method from Russia, where the authorities use the migration police in order to pressure and forbid educational events that involve foreigners.

American journalists Joe Bergantino, the co-founder of the New England Center for Investigative Reporting, and Andy Covington, the director of Newsplex at the University of South Carolina, who arrived in Russia in 2014 to teach journalism workshops, were detained and later deported.