Kyrgyz media freedom under assault

The Kyrgyz government has turned down an independent news website’s appeal against its blockage in the country, the website Kloop.kg reported on Thursday.

Media freedom has been shrinking rapidly in Kyrgyzstan under President Sadyr Japarov’s government.  

The Ministry of Culture ordered that Kloop.kg be blocked in Kyrgyzstan at the security service’s request on 12 September over a publication alleging that a jailed opposition politician had been subjected to torture.

The security service said that the report on the alleged abuse of politician Ravshan Jeenbekov’s rights in prison “did not correspond to reality”.

Jeenbekov was arrested in October last year on charges of causing public disorder, following protests against a border deal with Uzbekistan.

Kloop.kg is at the same time facing complete closure as a legal entity at the request of the Bishkek Prosecutor’s Office, which accused the website of carrying out activities “beyond those stated in its charter”.

The prosecutors’ move followed a probe conducted by the Security Service, which found that Kloop.kg publications were “aimed at harshly criticising government policies”, and most of them “aim to discredit central and local government representatives”.

The Kyrgyz parliament has initiated three new laws recently targeting independent media and civic activism. The new laws on ‘inaccurate information’, non-profit organizations and ‘foreign agents’ are almost exact copies of similar legal regulations adopted in recent years in Russia.

The new laws have already been used against Radio Liberty’s Kyrgyz Service (whose website was blocked in the country for nine months) and journalist Bolot Temirov (who was forced to leave the country), and to pressure other journalists and bloggers.

In an editorial earlier this week, the independent Novyye Litsa online newspaper editor Leyla Saralayeva, said that the “three repressive” laws are the government’s response to the recent media investigations into alleged corruption schemes involving President Japarov and Security Chief Kamchybek Tashiyev’s family and close associates.

“The 32 years of independence have shown that in our country people go into politics not with an idea to do something good for the nation. Their only goal is personal enrichment,” Saralayeva said.

“The independent media are the only ones who say out loud who is stealing, and what, from the people,” she said.

She added that Kyrgyz journalists are forced to seek foreign funding for their investigations, because those in power “will never fund media outlets which look into their murky businesses”.

Under the new law, any organisation or individual getting foreign funding will be deemed a ‘foreign agent’.

Saralayeva added that the Kyrgyz government’s crackdown on freedom of speech is also, in part, an attempt to “score points” with the Kremlin.

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