Signs of Political Motivation Permeate Case Against Kyrgyz Investigative Journalist

“I take into account all these legal circumstances to be dreamed up out of skinny air,” Temirov instructed OCCRP and Kloop.

However the penalty he faces — as much as as a lot as 20 years in jail — is extreme, and the result of his trial is turning into a widely-watched indicator of Kyrgyzstan’s dedication to press freedom.

His prosecution started earlier this yr when, as Temirov says, he angered the pinnacle of Kyrgyzstan’s highly effective GKNB safety company by investigating his household’s enterprise dealings.

The GKNB head, Kamchybek Tashiev, denies that the journalist’s investigations into his household’s enterprise have something to do with the case, and has insisted that his company was barely concerned.

However in a brand new investigation, journalists from OCCRP and its Kyrgyz accomplice, Kloop, have analyzed paperwork from the case in opposition to Temirov and located a number of crimson flags. The findings strongly recommend that his prosecution represents the deliberate concentrating on of an outspoken journalist, and never — because the official narrative would have it — the routine pursuit of a legal matter.

In keeping with the police, probably the most critical allegations in opposition to Temirov have been uncovered throughout an preliminary investigation right into a cannabis possession cost. In actual fact, nonetheless, the paperwork present that the GKNB had requested details about Temirov’s home passport and monitored his travels months earlier. The absence of a proper legal case in opposition to Temirov on the time raises questions on why the authorities have been trying into him.

Even the unique justification for a January raid on the Temirov LIVE workplace, when a small bag of cannabis was discovered on Temirov, exhibits indicators of being falsified or manipulated.

The scenario suits a sample noticed in two different latest circumstances. After making influential enemies in Kyrgyz politics, a rights activist and a well-liked blogger have been each charged with surprising crimes that may do injury to their reputations. Each additionally confronted further fees, together with for allegedly falsifying paperwork.

Leila Nazgul Seiitbek, a Kyrgyz lawyer and rights activist who acquired asylum in Austria after going through politically motivated fees, stated that Kyrgyz authorities usually open an preliminary cost to take purpose at an individual’s fame or as an excuse to start a fishing expedition.

“As soon as they’ve the decree on initiating the legal case, they’ve wider authority and might request every kind of issues,” she instructed OCCRP.

Tashiev and President Sadyr Japarov got here to energy in late 2020 within the wake of a well-liked rebellion in opposition to the outcomes of a controversial parliamentary election. Rights teams and political scientists have pointed to a number of violations of democratic procedures throughout that tumultuous time. They’ve additionally warned of a subsequent deterioration in Kyrgyz democracy, together with the adoption of a brand new structure that locations extra energy within the president’s palms, laws to restrict freedom of speech, and an increase in intolerant populist activism.

Towards this backdrop, Temirov’s prosecution will probably be a bellwether, rights teams say.

“The courtroom case that’s now underway in opposition to Temirov is a take a look at of Kyrgyzstan’s dedication to rule of legislation, to due course of, and to media freedom,” stated Gulnoza Stated, a program coordinator for the Committee to Defend Journalists.

The Kyrgyz authorities, together with Tashiev, didn’t reply to questions by OCCRP and Kloop however in different media denied any impropriety.

A Historical past of Harassment

The legal circumstances pursued in opposition to Temirov this yr are usually not the primary time he and his crew have confronted strain from the authorities.

In October 2021, Temirov LIVE staffers started to note suspicious automobiles parked exterior their constructing. Just a few months later, Temirov’s household found a hidden digital camera recording the lounge of their rented condo from behind the wallpaper. In keeping with Temirov, footage from that digital camera was utilized in propaganda movies in opposition to him later revealed on-line.

Most shockingly, sources stated a younger male who pursued a romantic relationship with certainly one of Temirov LIVE’s feminine workers was a GKNB agent. Surreptitiously recorded footage of a sexual encounter between them was then used to blackmail her. That video, too, was revealed on-line.

However whereas the earlier harassment of Temirov LIVE appeared centered on surveilling or scaring the journalists, this yr started with a critical escalation.

On the night of January 22, Kyrgyz legislation enforcement raided the Temirov LIVE workplace. After forcing Temirov and his colleagues to lie face down on the ground, they raised him off the bottom, unbound his palms, and instructed him to empty his pockets. Out got here a small cellophane packet of one thing inexperienced, later decided to be cannabis.

“They planted it!” Temirov shouted because the police dragged him out.

The authorities then added three extra fees. They accused Temirov, who, like many in Kyrgyzstan, can also be a citizen of Russia, of falsifying paperwork to obtain his home and worldwide Kyrgyz passports. Primarily based on that declare, additionally they charged him with unlawful border crossing when he traveled overseas.

A month later, an inside ministry investigator annulled Temirov’s passports.

Questions In regards to the Case

However for all of the power of the Kyrgyz authorities’ accusations, there are some critical points with the case courting again to the official begin of the investigation.

The January 22 raid on the Temirov LIVE workplace happened after a younger girl named Aiperi Adyl kyzy filed a police grievance in opposition to Bolot Nazarov, a Kyrgyz poet who had labored with Temirov’s crew and carried out their investigations as people songs. She claimed that Nazarov had compelled her to take medication, together with within the Temirov LIVE workplace. She additionally claimed that Nazarov instructed her he acquired the narcotics from his boss, who was additionally named “Bolot,” and gave {a partially} correct description of the workplace itself.

That afternoon, the police questioned her and registered the data in an official doc, writing that the alleged perpetrator was Bolot Nazarov.

After which one thing uncommon occurred. When police opened a legal case, they referred to the perpetrator as an “unknown particular person by the identify of ‘Bolot’.”

“When investigators have each alternative to establish the perpetrator, they’re obliged to take action, in principle,” lawyer and rights activist Seiitbek instructed OCCRP and Kloop. However, in apply, it doesn’t all the time occur if legislation enforcement has an curiosity in concealing his or her id, she added.

Roughly an hour and a half later, the police interviewed Adyl kyzy once more, this time formally as a sufferer of a criminal offense. Although she introduced some particulars in a different way, she by no means wavered in her declare that it was Nazarov who had pressured her to smoke marijuana.

As soon as the questioning concluded, the police issued a doc handing the case over to a bunch of investigators. However as soon as once more, they described the alleged perpetrator as an “unknown” Bolot.

That is what might have given them grounds to focus on Temirov at his workplace that night.

In keeping with the police, the next passport fees in opposition to Temirov grew from the drug case. Moreover, GKNB head Tashiev has claimed that his company was enjoying no important function.

However case paperwork definitively show that the investigation started lengthy earlier than January — and that the GKNB was concerned from the start.

They present that the GKNB requested info on Temirov’s home passport two months earlier than Adyl kyzy ever went to the police. The case file features a November 23 letter despatched by the Ministry of Digital Improvement to the GKNB responding to a request the company had despatched for info on Temirov’s home passport.

Whereas the doc’s contents are usually not significantly revelatory, its existence demonstrates that the GKNB was already taking purpose at Temirov’s citizenship even earlier than the raid and the legal case.

With no lively investigation in opposition to Temirov at the moment, there was no authorized rationale for Kyrgyz legislation enforcement — not to mention the GKNB, an company formally centered on defending nationwide safety — to research the journalist’s passport.

In keeping with Ermek Baibosunov, a Bishkek-based lawyer, Kyrgyz legislation enforcement officers want a strong cause to surveil an individual.

Flight information included within the paperwork additionally present that the GKNB was surveilling Temirov lengthy earlier than the drug case. One doc registered him flying to Istanbul on Might 27, 2021, and famous that, after Temirov handed by means of passport management, the border brokers notified the company’s Fifth Division, which in response to the media is chargeable for monitoring the media. (This was a month after Temirov LIVE revealed their first movies about Tashiev.)

Lastly, the paperwork present that the GKNB considered Temirov’s journalism as an inherent menace to the state. In a assessment of the Temirov LIVE YouTube channel, they discovered that the movies have been “aimed toward discrediting the nation’s prime military-political management, which might enhance the potential for protest and negatively have an effect on the socio-political scenario.”

Agent Batur?

Different info not coated within the case paperwork additionally recommend GKNB involvement.

After Temirov’s arrest in January, he and his crew turned their investigative lens on the raid of their workplace. By inspecting police footage, safety digital camera footage, and recordings made by journalists as police searched their workplace, they have been capable of reconstruct the raid and establish a number of questionable actions by legislation enforcement.

Most significantly, they discovered that two males — certainly one of whom seemed to be neither a drug police officer nor a member of the Inside Ministry particular forces — have been coordinating the raid. The lads seemed to be receiving and making a number of calls on their cellphones all through the night, as in the event that they have been receiving directions and reporting again to somebody.

Initially, as officers approached the door of Temirov LIVE’s workplace, one of many two males instructed the police cameraman to attend earlier than getting into.

By the point he entered, the primary wave of officers had already compelled the journalists onto the bottom and spent round a minute inside, probably permitting somebody to plant the medication on Temirov with out being caught on digital camera. (In addition they confiscated the computer systems the place the Temirov LIVE crew says they saved their very own safety digital camera footage, eradicating one other impartial supply of accountability.)

In a later assessment, a Bellingcat journalist who helped Temirov LIVE with their investigation honed in on footage taken of a police officer’s cellular phone display screen. The telephone listed the caller as “Batur SNB S5.”

“SNB” is an previous abbreviation for the GKNB, whereas S5 seems to check with its fifth division.

After Temirov LIVE acquired their confiscated gear again from legislation enforcement firstly of July, additionally they found that on January 24, two days after the raid, somebody had gone by means of their computer systems. However investigators have been solely given a courtroom order to look at the computer systems on January 28, making their actions unlawful, the journalists allege. The crew notes that propaganda movies that includes information from their computer systems appeared on-line throughout that interval.

Conventional Ways

The GKNB is probably the most highly effective safety construction in Kyrgyzstan and traces its lineage again to the notorious Soviet KGB.

In keeping with Erica Marat, an affiliate professor on the Nationwide Protection College in Washington, D.C., and an knowledgeable on legislation enforcement in former Soviet international locations, the GKNB has all the time been politicized and often loyal to the federal government. In previous years, it has additionally arrested folks on trumped up or falsified fees, and even killed regime opponents.

In recent times, it has additionally taken purpose at civil society, she stated.

“They principally need to silence [Temirov], however they’re additionally sending a bigger sign to your entire society: ‘Don’t take part in all these processes you name democratic,’” Marat instructed OCCRP.

Even low-profile activists are generally focused. An activist from southern Kyrgyzstan, who requested anonymity for concern of attracting additional consideration from the safety company, stated that the GKNB tried to hack her Twitter account, seemingly in retaliation for her criticism of the Kyrgyz authorities’s dealing with of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In addition they tried to hint her down utilizing her telephone quantity, however her SIM card was registered to a different particular person, she instructed OCCRP. She discovered about it after that particular person reached out to her by means of a colleague and let her know GKNB brokers had come visiting.

“It’s actually attention-grabbing that they weren’t chasing the true influencers with giant numbers of followers. They have been chasing activists like us,” she stated.

However when the safety companies actually set their sights on an individual, they don’t often cease at social media. And sometimes their method is just like the one used in opposition to Bolot Temirov.

In Might 2020, the GKNB known as Kamil Ruziev, a veteran human rights activist from the northeastern metropolis of Karakol, in for a gathering. In keeping with him, the official cause was to debate 4 petitions Ruziev had filed in opposition to the GKNB for failing to research a police officer who had beforehand threatened him.

In a dialog with OCCRP, Ruziev stated that when he arrived on the native GKNB department, the officers held him in a room, threatened and tortured him, and tried to power him to testify that he had falsified a physician’s observe as a part of a earlier case. Ruziev says he didn’t give into their calls for.

Ruziev solely managed to get out of custody two days later, after declaring a starvation strike and experiencing a spike in his blood strain. Nearly instantly, he acquired phrase that he had been charged with falsifying paperwork again in March and in addition was being charged with defrauding the folks he assisted as a rights defender.

In keeping with Ruziev, prosecutors later dropped the fraud fees after his accusers got here ahead and stated that GKNB officers had compelled them to make false accusations in opposition to him. However the doc falsification cost stays to at the present time.

Ruziev has no illusions about what is occurring in Temirov’s case. He instructed OCCRP that planting medication on an individual or accusing them of inciting ethnic hatred are the simplest attainable methods for legislation enforcement to launch legal circumstances in opposition to journalists and activists.

The GKNB might have been making ready to make use of the latter method in opposition to Temirov as nicely. In its evaluation of Temirov LIVE’s movies, a GKNB colonel concluded: “We don’t exclude the likelihood that the above talked about publications include indicators and actions aimed toward public requires a violent seizure of energy and the fomentation of ethnic, nationwide, or interregional hatred.”