A Bishkek court has ordered the temporary closure of two newspapers, Achyk Sayasat and Nazar, and fined them 5 million som (82,000 euros) for publishing an opinion piece by a government opponent in exile accusing President Kurmanbek Bakiev, who became president after a coup d’état, of lacking legitimacy, according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF).
In a ruling issued on March 18, the court found the two newspapers guilty of libelling the president. Their owner, Babyrbek Jennbekov, said he would publish them under another name pending the outcome of an appeal.
He added that he would begin on March 25 to publish Achyk Sayasat’s content in Alibi, a newspaper that was itself sentenced to pay a heavy fine in 2007.
Meanwhile, Centrasia.ru and Azattyk.org, two websites that had been blocked since March 9, are again accessible within Kyrgyzstan but pages are slow to load and some features are not working properly.
