State Department: Kazakhstan violated Borat’s human rights

Well, Sacha Baron Cohen’s. The Reuters article conflates them so for a fleeting moment I thought State had too, which would have instantly made this the second-most embarrassing diplomatic cock-up since 9/11.

But no, they know the difference. Under “Internet Freedom,” a subset of speech rights:

In 2005 the Agency for Information and Communication (AIC) issued regulations, without parliamentary discussion, to control the application process for registering .kz domains. The AIC may suspend or revoke registration under certain circumstances, including failure to locate servers in the country. Observers criticized the registration process as unduly restrictive and vulnerable to abuse. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s (OSCE) Representative on Freedom of the Media asked the government to withdraw these regulations. In December 2005 the government deemed as offensive the content of a satirical web site controlled by British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen and revoked the .kz domain.

The full report is here. Reuters says it includes incidents of “military hazing, torture by police, unhealthy prison conditions, arbitrary arrests, restrictions on freedom of assembly, domestic violence against women, people trafficking and ‘severe limits on citizens’ rights to change their government’ as areas of concern.” I.e., the country’s exactly like Borat says it is, minus the drinking of horse urine.

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