The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) on August 29 condemned the decision by the Kyrgyz Supreme Court to reject an appeal by the independent investigative website Kloop of a lower court ruling to liquidate the media outlet.
The initial decision by a court in Bishkek ordering the closure of the Kloop Media Public Foundation was made in early February. The court said then that the group's website was distributing "false information aimed at damaging the reputation of Kyrgyz officials."
"The forced shuttering of international award-winning investigative outlet Kloop is a shameful episode in the history of modern Kyrgyzstan -- a country long viewed as a haven for press freedom in Central Asia -- and is a clear indication that under President [Sadyr] Japarov this reputation no longer holds," Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, said.
"Kyrgyz authorities should immediately reverse their repressive course against the media and allow Kloop and all other independent outlets to work freely."
The CPJ's statement came hours after Kloop reported that its staff learned last week that the Supreme Court on July 16 had upheld a lower court's ruling to shut down the outlet. Kloop has now exhausted its chance of appeal.
Kloop's co-founder, Rinat Tukhvatshin, said the investigative group will continue to publish "the deepest investigations, the most balanced news, and the sharpest analyses."
Since the initial court ruling in February, the case has wound its way through Kyrgyzstan's judicial circuit.
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.
In early June, the Bishkek City Court ruled that a move by Kyrgyzstan's Culture Ministry to shut down Kloop was legitimate.
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 had 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 published materials are purely negative, aimed at discrediting representatives of state and municipal bodies."
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.