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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, by which dozens of individuals died and 1000’s have been pressured to briefly evacuate. Lower than every week later, Azattyk’s financial institution accounts have been additionally frozen with out clear rationalization — by order of the Kyrgyz secret police, Azattyk’s administration realized.
Worldwide human rights activists from Human Rights Watch known as the blocking of Azattyk a blatant try to manage and censor impartial journalism. Many Kyrgyz publications instituted a short lived information blackout out of solidarity with their colleagues, publishing notices studying: “No information at the moment. Media beneath strain in KG.”
This was no overreaction. Through the years, Radio Azattyk has been one of the crucial — and enduring — sources of data for the folks of Kyrgyzstan. In spite of everything, 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 rejoice its seventieth anniversary, marking a full lifetime of labor.
Dozens of distinguished Kyrgyz journalists have labored for Azattyk through the years. Some have 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 among the solely publications that would afford to have correspondents not solely within the capital, Bishkek, but additionally within the rural areas. Its concentrate on distant elements of the nation has all the time been an indicator: Azattyk not solely covers the areas, but additionally broadcasts of their native language, Kyrgyz, in contrast to most Bishkek-based publications, which use Russian.
Over the previous 10 years alone, Azattyk has repeatedly proven that it’s attainable not solely to cowl the information, but additionally to conduct severe 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 collection of investigations into smuggling and corruption in Central Asia, which led not solely to arrests and fines in Kyrgyzstan, but additionally to the sanctioning by america of a key participant, former customs boss Raimbek Matraimov, beneath the International Magnitsky Act.
The corruption revealed in these tales was so outrageous that the Kyrgyz folks took to the streets demanding justice, and finally achieved a change of presidency in October 2020, for the third time within the younger nation’s historical past.
The brand new president of Kyrgyzstan, Sadyr Japarov, who got here to energy within the wake of the revolution, promised that there could be “no strain towards 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 a lot of revered media shops have been prosecuted or focused by mobs of protesters who seem like centrally coordinated. Simply this week, a distinguished 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 shops 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 towards it.
All this appears to be like like a severe risk to media freedom within the nation.
However the historical past of impartial Kyrgyzstan exhibits that when governments make makes an attempt to limit Azattyk’s work, it not often ends nicely for them. Going after the impartial media is usually step one in a slide towards better repression that may simply backfire when residents turn out to be 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 instances, residents pissed off with corruption and cronyism led the cost.
Almazbek Atambaev tried to sue Azattyk in 2017 and publicly spoke out towards the outlet. After leaving the presidency later that yr, he fell out of favor together with his successor and is now serving time on a number of expenses.
Sooronbai Jeenbekov, who succeeded him, didn’t overtly oppose Azattyk, however his laconic response to anti-corruption investigations and rallies mentioned greater than he may. 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 towards the earlier regime have been recurrently coated by Azattyk. However at the moment, his officers are utilizing the identical rhetoric as his predecessors to place strain on the media, utilizing buzzwords like “false info,” and “not simply freedom, but additionally duty.”
All this creates a way of deja vu: a sense that Kyrgyzstan’s leaders are usually not studying from their nation’s historical past.
That historical past has so much 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.
This piece was first printed by OCCRP.
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