By Kevin McCauley
The New York office of Britain's Portland PR is repping Kazakhstan, providing strategic PA counseling, digital services and media outreach for the second largest energy and economic power of the former Soviet Union. It also is targeting academics and public officials.
Kazakhstan is taking criticism from human rights groups for a law put into place this month that requires religions to register with the government.
Susan Corke, senior program manager/Eurasia for Freedom House, says the “provisions are very troubling as they grossly curb Kazakhstani citizens' right to freely practice and express their faith.”
Kazakhstan strongman of more than 20 years, Nursultan Nazarbayev, defends the measure as a means to root out extremism in the aftermath of a terror plot that was foiled in August.
Porland was founded in 2001 by Tim Allan, a former senior advisor to former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and ex-communications director of BSkyB, which is partly owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.
The New York outpost is helmed by Charles McLean, former senior managing director of Hill & Knowlton and communications and PA chief of the World Economic Forum of Davos.
Portland's fee for the Kazakhstan work has not yet been determined.
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