In yet another blow to media freedom in Kyrgyzstan, a court in the capital, Bishkek, has ruled to dissolve independent media outlet Kloop, which has gained particular prominence for numerous hard-hitting investigative reports into corruption.

Prosecutors have argued that the outlet’s reporting is having a negative effect on the public’s mental health and driving many to take drugs and engage in sexually depraved behavior.

Kloop editor-in-chief Anna Kapushenko told Eurasianet after the February 9 ruling that the website will appeal and intends to continue reporting while the case is ongoing.

“The main task of Kloop is to gather and disseminate information. We will do this using all legal methods,” Kapushenko said. “We believe that the laws of the Kyrgyz Republic permit us to work in our current legal status.”

The order to dissolve the Kloop public foundation, the legal entity under which the publication has existed since 2007, is the culmination of a lawsuit filed by prosecutors in August. That legal action was the outcome of an audit of the outlet’s content carried out by the State Committee for National Security, or GKNB, the successor agency to the KGB.

The GKNB concluded that Kloop reporting contained “harsh criticism of the current government’s policies” and that most of the outlet’s output was “purely negative in nature and aimed at discrediting representatives of state and municipal bodies.”

This in turn risks sowing “fear, anxiety, despair and panic” among the public, thereby causing them to lose hope in the future and succumb to mental disorders, “sexually abnormal behavior,” drug addiction and suicidal tendencies, the GKNB auditors concluded.

Kloop came under another line of attack in September, when the Culture Ministry issued an edict to block access to Kloop’s website over its report on allegations that a jailed opposition politician, Ravshan Jeenbekov, was being abused at a pre-detention facility. Under a 2021 law, outlets deemed to be trading in anything that the authorities unilaterally determine is false information are liable for summary censorship measures.

The decline of press freedoms in Kyrgyzstan since President Sadyr Japarov came to power in October 2020 has been precipitous.

That decline is starkly illustrated the country’s drop down the Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index. Kyrgyzstan ranked 122nd out of 180 countries in the 2023 index, down from its previous position at 72nd in 2022.

In an increasingly outdated description of Kyrgyzstan, Reporters Without Borders, or RSF, noted that despite worsening conditions, there were some pockets of vibrancy in the media scene.

“The government still controls all traditional media and is trying to extend its influence to privately owned outlets,” RSF said in a note written just a few weeks ago. “But a degree of pluralism exists, as seen in the popularity of news sites such as 24.kg, Kaktus.media and Kloop.kg.”

In another development since those lines were written, however, GKNB agents in mid-January mounted a raid of 24.kg, a news agency, and interrogated senior management over claims that the outlet has been “propagandizing war.”

One day after that happened, police swooped on the offices of YouTube channel Temirov Live, which was founded by investigative reporter Bolot Temirov. The Interior Ministry claimed that the social media output of Temirov Live and an associated channel focused on entertainment, Ait Ait Dese, were “discrediting state institutions,” which could in turn lead to “various forms of unrest.”

Lawmakers are doing their bit to chill the environment further. Changes to media legislation now under consideration envision banning journalists from “misusing freedom of speech” and publishing any content found to be inciting unrest, promoting single-sex marriages and “non-traditional sexual relations,” or in any way harming “the morality of the population.”