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On October 26, Kyrgyz authorities blocked the web site of Radio Azattyk, the Kyrgyz department of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, for a interval of two months. The rationale was a narrative about new clashes on the Kyrgyz-Tajik border, wherein dozens of individuals died and 1000’s had been pressured to quickly evacuate. Two days in the past, Azattyk’s financial institution accounts had been additionally frozen with out clear rationalization — by order of the Kyrgyz secret police, Azattyk’s administration realized.
A Radio Azattyk reporter covers a protest in opposition to corruption within the Kyrgyz customs service in Bishkek in December 2019. (Photograph: Gulzhan Turdubayeva/Radio Azattyk)
Worldwide human rights activists from Human Rights Watch referred to as the blocking of Azattyk a blatant try to manage and censor impartial journalism. Many Kyrgyz publications instituted a brief information blackout out of solidarity with their colleagues, publishing notices studying: “No information right now. Media below stress in KG.”
This was no overreaction. Through the years, Radio Azattyk has been probably the most crucial — and enduring — sources of data for the individuals of Kyrgyzstan. In any case, Azattyk (which implies “Freedom” in Kyrgyz) went on the air lengthy earlier than Kyrgyzstan gained independence from the Soviet Union. In 2023, the Kyrgyz department of Radio Liberty will have fun its seventieth anniversary, marking a full lifetime of labor.
Dozens of outstanding Kyrgyz journalists have labored for Azattyk over time. Some had been so profitable in conveying the issues of Kyrgyz society that they directed the stature they earned into political careers. Others opened their very own editorial workplaces.
Kyrgyzstan is a small nation with a small media group. Azattyk is without doubt one of the solely publications that might afford to have correspondents not solely within the capital, Bishkek, but in addition within the rural areas. Its concentrate on distant components of the nation has all the time been an indicator: Azattyk not solely covers the areas, but in addition broadcasts of their native language, Kyrgyz, in contrast to most Bishkek-based publications, which use Russian.
Formally, Radio Azattyk was blocked as a result of it aired an episode of the RFE/RL-produced present Present Time about navy clashes on the Kyrgyz-Tajik border. Authorities claimed the episode contained false details about the battle.
Over the previous 10 years alone, Azattyk has repeatedly proven that it’s doable not solely to cowl the information, but in addition to conduct critical investigations into the vices and abuses of Kyrgyz leaders and officers.
Maybe the clearest instance of Azattyk journalists’ brave work is their collaboration with OCCRP and Kloop.kg on a sequence of investigations into smuggling and corruption in Central Asia, which led not solely to arrests and fines in Kyrgyzstan, but in addition to the sanctioning by the US of a key participant, former customs boss Raimbek Matraimov, below the World Magnitsky Act.
The corruption revealed in these tales was so outrageous that the Kyrgyz individuals took to the streets demanding justice, and finally achieved a change of presidency in October 2020, for the third time within the nation’s younger historical past.
The brand new president of Kyrgyzstan, Sadyr Japarov, who got here to energy within the wake of the revolution, promised that there can be “no stress in opposition to the opposition or the media” on his watch. However he has already fallen far wanting this promise: since he took workplace, dozens of opposition figures have been arrested, and quite a lot of revered media retailers have been prosecuted or focused by mobs of protesters who seem like centrally coordinated. Simply yesterday, a outstanding political commentator and authorities critic was arrested for “distribution of extremist supplies”.
In August 2021, a brand new regulation on “safety from false info” was enacted. It allowed the Kyrgyz authorities, for the primary time, to freely interpret whether or not statements made within the information media are true, and to dam information retailers with out recourse to a courtroom determination in the event that they publish one thing the federal government deems false. Azattyk is the third publication to have had this regulation used in opposition to it.
All this appears like a critical risk to media freedom within the nation.
Abuses within the Kyrgyz customs service uncovered by Radio Azattyk, OCCRP, and Kloop.kg led to a sequence of anti-corruption protests. (Photograph: Alexandra Titova/Kloop.kg)
However the historical past of impartial Kyrgyzstan exhibits that when governments make makes an attempt to limit Azattyk’s work, it not often ends properly for them. Going after the impartial media is commonly step one in a slide in direction of higher repression that may simply backfire when residents turn into fed up.
Presidents Askar Akayev and Kurmanbek Bakiyev tried to do exactly that shortly earlier than their regimes collapsed in 2005 and 2010, respectively. In each circumstances, residents pissed off with corruption and cronyism led the cost.
Almazbek Atambaev tried to sue Azattyk in 2017 and publicly spoke out in opposition to the outlet. After leaving the presidency later that yr, he fell out of favor along with his successor and is now serving time on a number of prices.
A few weeks earlier than Azattyk was shut down, protesters gathered outdoors its workplaces demanding that it’s closed. The protesters, who seemed to be centrally coordinated, additionally demanded the closure of two different impartial media retailers, Kloop.kg and Kaktus.Media. (Photograph: Gulzhan Turdubaeva/Azattyk)
Sooronbai Jeenbekov, who succeeded him, didn’t brazenly oppose Azattyk, however his laconic response to anti-corruption investigations and rallies stated greater than he might. His reign additionally ended ingloriously after a mass rebellion in October 2020.
Now the nation is headed by Sadyr Japarov, who was within the political opposition earlier than he took workplace. His struggles in opposition to the earlier regime had been usually lined by Azattyk. However right now, his officers are utilizing the identical rhetoric as his predecessors to place stress on the media, utilizing buzzwords like “false info,” and “not simply freedom, but in addition accountability”.
All this creates a way of deja vu: a sense that Kyrgyzstan’s leaders usually are not studying from their nation’s historical past.
That historical past has lots to show. However maybe its most important lesson is that democratic values like freedom of the press are a bulwark that retains the nation from sliding into authoritarianism.
Eldiyar Arykbaev is OCCRP’s Central Asia coordinator, and the previous editor-in-chief of the Kyrgyz media outlet Kloop.kg.
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