In Kyrgyzstan, the conviction of journalists and anti-corruption activists confirms the authoritarian turn of the regime

A demonstration in support of journalist Bolot Temirov in Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan), in January 2022. VYACHESLAV OSELEDKO / AFP A court sentenced, Thursday October 10, four journalists and contributors to Temirov Live, one of the last independent media in Kyrgyzstan, for “incitement to mass unrest”. A verdict which confirms the decline in public freedoms in this country once considered a democratic island in Central Asia. Eleven personalities revolving directly or indirectly around this editorial team, whose video investigations lifted the veil on the corruption of the regime’s ruling elites, appeared in court, nine months after their sudden arrest by the police. On October 2, the NGO Amnesty International called for the charges to be dropped, considering that “these accusations [n’étaient] nothing more than a politically motivated attempt to stifle free speech and punish journalists for their work.” In the eyes of observers, this wave of arrests was part of a campaign of intimidation directed against the founder of the media, Bolot Temirov. Bête noire of the regime, the journalist is today in exile in an undisclosed location in Europe, after being deprived of his citizenship and expelled from the country. “A drift towards authoritarianism” His wife, the journalist and activist Makhabat Tazhibek Kyzy, was sentenced on Thursday to six years in prison, notably for having denounced in a video the corruption of the authorities “in place for thirty years”. The courts decided to place their 11-year-old son in an orphanage while she serves her sentence. The poet and rapper Azamat Ishenbekov, who relayed the revelations of Temirov Live in his songs, was sentenced to five years in prison. Two other journalists, Aktilek Kaparov and Aike Beishekeyeva, were released following a suspended sentence, while the seven other defendants, who had been under house arrest for several months, were acquitted. “This is a critical turning point for the independent press in Kyrgyzstan,” reacts Jeanne Cavelier, head of the Eastern Europe and Central Asia office of Reporters Without Borders (RSF), who sees it as “a blatant drift of Kyrgyz power towards ‘authoritarianism’. “This verdict is not surprising given Kyrgyzstan’s trajectory over the past few years, but it is extremely disappointing as the Kyrgyz public is deprived of truthful information and journalism is criminalized,” said Drew Sullivan, editorial director of the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, a consortium of investigative journalists of which Temirov Live is a partner. Kyrgyzstan until recently had a vibrant media scene and civil society. But the noose has tightened in recent years under the leadership of its president, Sadyr Japarov, who combines populist rhetoric with methods of control reminiscent of Vladimir Putin’s Russia. In February, the courts had already ordered the closure of another independent media outlet, Kloop, even though the country had lost fifty places in RSF’s world press freedom rankings the previous year. The country is also preparing to strengthen the law on defamation, to severely punish the authors of “insults” and “false information”. Read also | In Kyrgyzstan, the arrest of eleven journalists illustrates the authoritarian turn of the regime Add to your selections Maxime Vaudano Reuse this content



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