BISHKEK -- The Bishkek City Court on June 3 ruled that a move by Kyrgyzstan's Culture Ministry to shut down the website of the independent investigative media outlet Kloop was legitimate.
Kloop's lawyer, Fatima Yakupbaeva, said the ruling will be appealed to the Supreme Court.
In March, the Bishkek Administrative Court canceled the ministry's move to block Kloop's Russian-language site, after which the ministry appealed the ruling to the Bishkek City Court.
Separately, Kloop's Kyrgyz-language website was blocked in November amid a government campaign to pressure the Kloop Media Public Foundation.
The ministry said it disrupted the sites after the State Committee for National Security (UKMK) claimed that Kloop distributed false information.
The claim referred to a report that appeared on Kloop's website in September about jailed opposition politician Ravshan Jeenbekov and a statement he made about being tortured while in custody.
The ministry demanded Kloop remove an article about the alleged torture of Jeenbekov from its Russian-language website or face being blocked.
Kloop refused to remove the material, saying the story in question attributed all information about the situation faced by Jeenbekov while in custody to actual individuals and sources.
Kloop said at the time that it was officially informed of the lawsuit against it and that the move was taken after an audit by the UKMK determined its "published materials are aimed at sharply criticizing the policies of the current government" and that "most of the publish materials are purely negative, aimed at discrediting representatives of state and municipal bodies."
On February 9, a court in Bishkek ordered the closure of the Kloop Media Public Foundation, saying that the group's website was distributing "false information aimed at damaging the reputation of Kyrgyz officials."
Established in June 2007, Kloop is a Kyrgyz news website whose main contributors are students and graduates of the Kloop Media Public Foundation School of Journalism.
As an independent media entity, it is known for publishing reports on corruption within various governmental bodies and for providing training to Central Asian journalists in fact-checking and investigative techniques.