''Golos Respubliki'' (Voice of the Republic; ) was a

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbeki ...

i newspaper. It was founded by

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

n journalist Irina Petrushova in 2000. Published weekly, it focused on covering business and economic issues in Kazakhstan, and frequently published stories critical of the regime, including financial mismanagement and supposed

cronyism Cronyism is the spoils system practice of partiality in awarding jobs and other advantages to friends or trusted colleagues, especially in politics and between politicians and supportive organizations. For example, cronyism occurs when appointin ...

, such as the granting of oil rights to one of President Nazarbayev's relatives, and the disappearance of funds for an airport in

Almaty Almaty (; kk, Алматы; ), formerly known as Alma-Ata ( kk, Алма-Ата), is the List of most populous cities in Kazakhstan, largest city in Kazakhstan, with a population of about 2 million. It was the capital of Kazakhstan from 1929 to ...

. The paper also claimed that Nazarbayev had sequestered US$1 billion of the state's oil revenues in a Swiss bank account, although the government stated that this had been an emergency fund used to rescue the national economy in 1998.

Extremism charges in court

In November 2012, the newspaper was taken to court along with some 40 other media organizations for alleged violation of "Kazakhstan's laws on extremism and national security", but contrary to expectations, Golos was not vindicated and the newspaper had to suspend its operations.

Extremism charges in court

References

See also