Kazakhstan’s Orda.kz shuts down after editor jailed for eight years
Orda.kz, one of Kazakhstan’s leading independent news outlets, ceased publication a month after an Almaty court sentenced its editor-in-chief to eight years in prison. Press freedom advocates described the closure as the final step in a months-long state campaign aimed at silencing critical journalism.
The outlet’s majority owner, Maksat Ganiyev, publicly attributed the shutdown to financial losses, telling reporters that six years of investment had failed to yield commercial viability and denying that the decision was driven by political pressure. He described the outlet as a business project. “It has to deliver a certain return. It has to be commercially viable and interesting”, he told OCCRP.
Yet media watchdogs and legal experts view the shuttering as part of a wider, systematic tightening of state control over independent media following the adoption of a new constitution and the election of a single-chamber parliament, the Kurultai, dominated by the ruling Adilet party.
“I don’t think this comes down to finances for the investor,” said Nazira Darimbet, head of the Kazakh human rights organization Adil Soz. “The scheme was designed so that, in the eyes of society, everything would look legal.”
Darimbet drew parallels to the 2016 forced closure of Respublika, another independent outlet whose editor was jailed on criminal libel charges before the publication was forced off the air.
The crisis at Orda.kz escalated dramatically on Aug. 8, when a court found editor-in-chief Gulnara Bazhkenova guilty of spreading false information, embezzlement, and illegal entrepreneurship - charges first leveled by police investigators in late 2025. In addition to the eight-year prison sentence, the court imposed a five-year ban on her practicing journalism, though her imprisonment was deferred for two years because she has a minor child.
Bazhkenova’s conviction forms part of a broader wave of legal action against independent reporters across Kazakhstan. On July 31, a court banned the owner and editor-in-chief of the KazTAG news agency from journalism and placed them under restricted liberty. Elsewhere, video blogger Azamat Omarov was arrested on charges of inciting social discord, while investigative journalists Lukpan Akhmedyarov and Dinara Yegeubayeva were placed under travel bans.
The pressure on the press has also extended to physical access. In the wake of the Aug. 23 parliamentary elections, administration officials at the Kurultai informed reporters that they would no longer be permitted to approach lawmakers in corridors for unscripted questions. Instead, journalists must remain in a designated press room and move through the building only with official escorts.
Rights advocates warn that the combination of criminal prosecutions, outlet closures, and physical barriers risks reducing Kazakh political coverage to little more than state-curated public relations.
“We risk getting clones of state channels with the same questions, the same faces, and the same answers,” said Diana Okremova, director of the Legal Media Center.
World Affairs Correspondent
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