Page 77 - bne IntelliNews monthly magazine December 2023

bne December 2023
Kloop reported that same day that Bishkek prosecutor Emilbek Abdymannapov said its reporting “has a negative emotional-psychological effect on society... generating fear, anxiety, despair, and panic among a huge number
of people...”
On September 8, the Culture Ministry demanded Kloop remove its reports about a jailed former member of parliament and vocal critic of the government, Ravshan Jeenbekov, being tortured.
Kloop refused and, on September 12, the Culture Ministry ordered Kloop’s Russian-language website to be blocked. At the end of October, the Culture Ministry issued another order, this time to block Kloop’s Kyrgyz-language site.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ’s) reading of the government’s attack on critical media was crystal clear as early as May 7, 2022, when it concluded: “As their attacks on the independent press intensify, Kyrgyz authorities appear to be resorting to any legal means, however spurious, to clamp down on critical outlets.”
The CPJ and other watchdogs by now have extensive files on Japarov officials’ moves against the media.
Shutting down Next TV
On March 3, 2022, less than one week after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan’s Next TV posted on its Telegram channel about comments made by Kazakhstan’s former security chief Alnur Musayev.
Musayev alleged Kyrgyzstan was secretly providing military assistance to Russia.
Next TV was founded by Ravshan Jeenbekov.
Plainclothes GKNB officers raided the station that night, taking director Taalaybek Duyshenbiyev into custody and charging him and Next TV with “inciting ethnic, national, religious, or interregional hatred.”
The station was closed.
Duyshenbiyev was convicted of inciting interethnic hatred in September 2022 and sentenced to five years in prison, but the sentence was later reduced to three years’ probation.
Close shave for Kaktus
On January 27, 2022, Kaktus.media republished an article from independent Tajik media outlet Asia-Plus about a brief exchange of fire along the Kyrgyz-Tajik border days earlier.
Asia-Plus reported that it was Kyrgyz soldiers who started the shooting.
Kaktus removed the report several hours later, but
Opinion 77 prosecutors filed a case against the outlet on February 1 for
disseminating “propaganda of war.”
The case was dismissed at the end of March 2022 for lack of evidence.
Silencing Azattyk
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Kyrgyz Service, known locally as Azattyk, was blocked in late October 2022 after refusing
to remove material about the September 2022 Kyrgyz-Tajik border clashes.
The Culture Ministry ordered the website blocked on the grounds that Azattyk’s material on the border conflict contained views from the Tajik side that the ministry claimed were false.
Azattyk’s bank accounts were also frozen, and a long court process started that only ended in July this year when Azattyk removed the material from its website.
Deaf to the clamour of protest
Domestic and international rights and media freedom groups, the OSCE, the European Union, individual governments, and others have criticised the Japarov administration’s campaign against Kyrgyz independent media outlets every step of the way – without effect.
In its annual Press Freedom Index, Reporters Without Borders dropped Kyrgyzstan on its ranking of 180 countries from 72nd in 2022 to 122nd in 2023.
There are currently two draft laws moving forward, which, if passed, could be the death knell for independent media in Kyrgyzstan.
One proposed law is on “non-commercial organisations”. Its critics point out the draft strongly resembles Russia’s law on foreign agents, which has led to the closure of many independent media outlets in Russia.
The other is the proposed new law on media that places new restrictions on media outlets.
If these draft laws are passed, the end of independent media in Kyrgyzstan might follow.
“There are currently two draft laws moving forward, which, if passed, could be the death knell for independent media in Kyrgyzstan”
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