Kyrgyz authorities have detained independent journalists Ulugbek Abdusalomov and Azimjon Askarov in the southern part of the country engulfed by ethnic violence since early June, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). On June 14, unknown men picked up Abdusalomov, chief editor of independent newspaper Diydor, from a street in the Jalal-Abad region; police are holding him in a...
Local television stations in the southern Kyrgyz city of Osh were ordered to cease transmission on Friday by the city government in the wake of interethnic violence in the region, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Osh residents now have access only to the state television channel, KTR, and several Russian television channels, the independent news agency Zpress reported. “We...
The Kyrgyzstan provisional government’s Coordinating Council in the southern region of Osh introduced a new system of censorship on April 15, according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). and reiterates its appeal to interim President Rosa Otunbayeva’s administration to keep its promises to respect the rule of law. The opposition to ousted President Kurmanbek Bakiyev’s government’s criticised its...
Members of the Kyrgyz counter-espionage service temporarily overran the office of independent news agency 24.kg in Bishkek on April 15, eight days after the revolt that toppled President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Journalists said armed men, led by Aspekov Talant, the head of the service, stormed into the office and, without giving any reason, announced that...
The current situation of the media in Kyrgyzstan reflects the confusion and uncertainty that has prevailed in the country as a whole since the unrest that allowed the opposition to seize power six days ago, according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Although the ousted president, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, has fled the capital, he is still refusing to stand down. Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty (RFE...
Authorities in Kyrgyzstan should halt their ongoing crackdown on independent and opposition news outlets, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has said. A Bishkek court suspended a pro-opposition newspaper on Wednesday—the third such suspension in March—while financial police confiscated newsroom computers belonging to an independent Web-based television channel on Thursday, effectively...
The Kyrgyz government has pressured several radio and television stations to stop carrying programming from the Kyrgyz service of the US government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has said. Four private radio stations and one television channel in northern Kyrgyzstan—including two outlets in the capital, Bishkek—halted RFE/RL programming...
Kyrgyzstan journalist Gennady Pavlyuk, who was thrown from a sixth floor window in Almaty, Kazakhstan on December 16, died Tuesdayin hospital, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. “Ten days ahead of taking over the presidency of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the Kazakh authorities cannot allow a murder like this to go unpunished and the Kyrgyz side must...
There has been an unrelenting wave of unsolved attacks on journalists in Kyrgyzstan, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). In two separate cases on Tuesday, a journalist was beaten and a newspaper received a bullet in an envelope along with threatening notes, according to local news reports. Last week, several other journalists and political analysts who...
Kyrgyzstan’s Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that the prosecution of a man accused in the 2007 murder of Alisher Saipov, editor of the Uzbek-language weekly Siyosat, can proceed, the independent news website Ferghana reported. Saipov’s family and colleagues have called the case bogus, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). The ruling came in an appeal filed by the...
