The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has condemned a Kyrgyz court’s decision to uphold the two-month pretrial detention of 11 current and former employees of the anti-corruption investigative media group Temirov Live.
The CPJ called the journalists' incarceration "an unprecedented assault on press freedom in modern Kyrgyz history."
"Authorities should immediately release all 11 detained current and former journalists of Temirov Live, withdraw the trumped-up charges against them, and end their crackdown on independent reporting," CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator Gulnoza Said said.
In several hearings between February 1 and February 6, the Bishkek City Court rejected the appeals of current Temirov Live reporters Makhabat Tajibek-kyzy, Aike Beishekeeva, Akyl Orozbekov, Sapar Akunbekov, and Azamat Ishenbekov, and the investigative group's former reporters Aktilek Kaparov, Tynystan Asypbekov, Joodar Buzumov, Saipidin Sultanaliev, Maksat Tajibek-uulu, and Jumabek Turdaliev in New York.
Your browser doesn’t support HTML5
Kyrgyzstan Cracks Down Hard On Independent Journalists, Raising Alarm Bells
The journalists were detained on January 16 after police searched their homes and offices on a charge of "calls for disobedience and mass riots" over the group's reporting.
A day before that, the State Committee for National Security (UKMK) briefly detained for questioning the director and two editors of the independent 24.kg news agency after searching their homes and offices in a case of "propagating war" because of the outlet's coverage of Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
Kyrgyzstan's civil society and free press have traditionally been the most vibrant in Central Asia, but that has changed amid a deepening government crackdown.
Last month, eight international human rights groups -- Civil Rights Defenders, Human Rights Watch, International Partnership for Human Rights, Norwegian Helsinki Committee, People In Need, Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, International Federation for Human Rights, and the World Organization Against Torture -- called on the Kyrgyz government to stop its crackdown on independent media, calling the reporters' arrests "intimidation and harassment" of journalists to keep them from carrying out their work.