Kyrgyz court suspends hearings into case against independent Kloop Media   

A Kyrgyz court on Tuesday opened and quickly suspended hearings into the case against Kloop Media brought by the Bishkek Prosecutor’s Office, Kloop’s website reported.  

The Prosecutor’s Office is seeking Kloop Media’s closure on the grounds that it is carrying out activities, i.e. production and distribution of information, not stated in its charter. 

In the case filed in August, the Prosecutor’s Office also alleged that Kloop’s publications “are having a negative impact on Kyrgyzstan”. 

Kloop says that its charter names as one of its activities “providing young people and other civil society representatives with a platform for free expression of opinions on social, political and economic events”. 

At the hearing on Tuesday, the Prosecutor’s Office requested suspension of the court proceedings until after a new expert examination of several Kloop publications.  

The court upheld the request despite objections by Kloop lawyers.  

The “linguistic and psychological and psychiatric” examination of 10 publications will aim to determine if they contain any words or expressions that could stir racial, ethnic or religious discord.  

It will also look for statements that may suggest superiority of one group of citizens over others; also for expressions of hostility, aggression towards other social, ethnic groups and attempt to disparage.  

The experts will also examine the materials for any calls for a violent change of government. 

They are also asked to determine whether the materials “use hidden technologies to create negative public opinion about policies being conducted by the current Kyrgyz authorities”.  

Kloop’s news website has been blocked in Kyrgyzstan since its publication of an investigation in August into alleged business links between powerful security chief Kamchybek Tashiyev’s sons, the family of ousted president Kurmanbek Bakiyev and an oligarch linked to Russia’s Rosatom. 

Several other Kyrgyz independent journalists and media outlets have come under official pressure under President Sadyr Japarov’s rule.  

The Kyrgyz parliament is currently considering a new media law that, if adopted, would designate all websites as media outlets and set strict registration procedures for them. 

In a statement in August, Human Rights Watch urged Kyrgyz MPs to reject the bill. 

It said that freedom of media and expression were “under siege” in Kyrgyzstan, citing “a slew of highly restrictive legislative initiatives” and “a spate of criminal cases against independent journalists and media outlets”. 

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