Rights groups are assailing Kyrgyz authorities for convicting four journalists at an anti-corruption news organization on charges of inciting civil unrest, characterizing it as a “crushing blow” to press freedom in the Central Asian state. The outlet’s head, meanwhile, plans to appeal, alleging that Kyrgyzstan’s leadership is manipulating the justice system to establish a “dictatorship.”

In all, 11 journalists affiliated with the Temirov Live YouTube channel, and its affiliated social media channel, Ait Ait Dese, stood to hear verdicts in a trial that concluded October 10. Four were convicted on charges of obliquely conspiring to incite mass unrest via the production and distribution of content “discrediting” Kyrgyz authorities, including President Sadyr Japarov and his chief lieutenant, State Security Services chief Kamchybek Tashiev. 

Makhabat Tazhibek kyzy, a co-chief of the news organization, received a six-year prison sentence. Another defendant, poet Azamat Ishenbekov, received a five-year term for the content he created for Ait Ait Dese. Two others received suspended three-year prison terms. The seven remaining defendants were acquitted ostensibly for lack of evidence. 

Tazhibek kyzy’s husband and co-founder of the organization, Bolot Temirov, lives in exile in Russia and was not a defendant in the case.

In a highly unusual form of punishment, the court also took custody of Tazhibek kyzy’ and Temirov’s 12-year-old son, issuing an order to make him a ward of the state, even though Temirov and other close family relatives remain at liberty and can care for the child.

Temirov, in an interview with Eurasianet, described the sentencing as “hostage taking.”

“Once again, they [top officials] showed that the courts and law enforcement agencies work on orders from the authorities,” Temirov said. “This sentence is a demonstrative admission that the current authorities no longer have the moral right to talk about the existence of democracy and freedom of speech in the country. With this decision, they admitted that the country is heading towards dictatorship and terror.”

International rights watchdog groups, including Amnesty International, The Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders, are echoing Temirov’s assessment. 

“Kyrgyzstan has forfeited its reputation as a relative haven of press freedom in Central Asia and entered a dark new page in its history,” a CPJ statement quoted Gulnoza Said, the organization’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, as saying. CPJ also called on “international partners” to bring collective pressure to bear on the Kyrgyz government “to reverse its growing attacks on the press.”

Temirov Live is an investigative YouTube channel that is a local partner of the global non-profit watchdog Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP). The channel was launched in August 2020, shortly before Japarov’s rise to the presidency. Temirov subsequently started up Ait Ait Dese as an affiliated social media channel to explore political issues via music and poetry.

Temirov and his colleagues have long been targeted for their journalistic activities. In January 2022, Temirov was charged with a variety of crimes, including drug possession, illegal border crossing and document forgery, a case he said was politically motivated. He was subsequently acquitted of the most serious charges, but a court ordered him deported to Russia. Temirov has dual Kyrgyz and Russian citizenship.

The case that culminated October 10 against Temirov Live dates back to January, when authorities raided the outlet’s office in Bishkek. Nurbek Sydykov, a lawyer for one of the defendants, asserted that the case against the journalists rested on the misapplication of Kyrgyz law, which specifies that only those making active calls for civil disobedience can be charged under ‘inciting’ statutes. The content that figured centrally in the case made no such explicit appeals to protest government policies. 

In addition, Sydykov said that testimony presented by expert witnesses for the prosecution should be considered invalid for lack of standing.

“If real experts saw these opinions, they would cry. One of the experts we questioned answered that he is not an expert and is not on the register of experts, but is only a research fellow,” a local news site, Kaktus Media, quoted Sydykov as saying.

Reporters Without Borders’ World Press Rankings for 2024 showed that Kyrgyzstan ranked 120th out of the 180 countries surveyed. The country has experienced a precipitous fall in the rankings since Japarov came to power: in 2020, Kyrgyzstan was ranked 82nd out of 180.