Kyrgyzstan

Journalists are frequently being summoned for questioning by the Special Services of Kyrgyzstan, Adil Soz has reported. On December 5, the founder of the local Buran radio station, independent journalist Rakhmanzhan Islamov, was summoned for questioning at the Department of the State Committee for National Security (SCNS) in the city of Tokmok. The independent press agency 24.kg reported that...

Rinat Kazakbaev, accused of murdering journalist Yury Aleksandrov and his wife, was sentenced to a life imprisonment according to the Article 97 of the Kyrgyz Criminal Code for the “atrocious murder of two or more persons”. According to 24.kg website, the high-profile case ended with the guilty verdict of the Alamudun district court judge Tolomush Asylov on august 4. The court has also decided to...

A new broadcast law signed by Kyrgyzstan President Kurmanbek Bakiyev may threaten the future of a large number of news media outlets. The law, signed on June 4, gives the president the power to appoint the executive director of state-run TV and radio KTR. It also makes use of official languages partly compulsory as well as in-house production of programmes by the media. The president has however

Police in the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek raided the newsroom of independent newspaper De-Facto on June 14, taking all its financial records, confiscating computers, and sealing the newsroom, the independent regional news website Ferghana has reported. The paper was shut down after it published a letter to Kyrgyzstan’s president and other public officials that alleged official corruption. The raid...

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called on Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev to veto a bill that would reverse efforts to reform Kyrgyzstan’s state television and radio company (KTR) into a public broadcaster. Kyrgyzstan’s parliament passed the bill on April 24. It gives the president the right to appoint KTR’s chief executives and affirms the state’s monopoly on national...

Kyrgyzstan authorities have closed the investigation into the October murder of Alisher Saipov, editor of the independent Uzbek-language weekly Siyosat (Politics), according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). This is the second time authorities have officially closed the investigation in as many months. The Saipov family told New York-based CPJ that the local bureau of the Kyrgyz...