Kyrgyz security services raid news website over Ukraine-related publication

Security service officers raided the office of Kyrgyz news website 24.kg on Monday, seizing some equipment and taking away the director and two editors for questioning.

The security service said the raid was connected to a criminal investigation on charges of spreading war propaganda, 24.kg website reported.

“The office has been searched. They have seized computers, notebooks and memory cards as other evidence connected to the criminal case,” the report said.

According to Kyrgyz media reports, the case is linked to one of the website’s publications on the war in Ukraine.

On 28 November the website carried a report alleging that a Kyrgyz company was helping Russia to buy Ukrainian-made aircraft spare parts in violation of international sanctions.

The report cited independent Russian website Vazhnyye Istorii (Important Stories).

The website’s latest reports related to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are about a meeting between the Turkish and Kyrgyz foreign ministers, who discussed ways of settling the conflict, and about a Kyrgyz court sentencing a man to five years in jail for fighting in Ukraine for the Wagner mercenaries.

The Kyrgyz security service, led by Kamchybek Tashiyev, has been carrying out a wide crackdown on independent media, businesspeople and criminal groups, in a bid to remove any potential threats to the current government’s grip on power.

Separately, President Sadyr Japarov said on Monday that currently “there are no grounds for a power change” in Kyrgyzstan.

“We are not going to allow any pretexts for that to emerge,” he told the official news agency Kabar.

“There will be a harsh response to those who seek to stir up unrest, involving the masses. We are going to act pre-emptively and uncover evil-minded leaders, who are ready to bring people out and shoot at them on the sly [to provoke unrest] or carry out an explosion,” Japarov said.

“We are not going to be nice to them, like the previous governments,” he added.

Japarov and Tashiyev came to power amid anti-government protests in October 2020 with support from criminal groups.

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