Citizens of Kyrgyzstan — human rights activists, journalists, civic activists wrote an open letter to the President Sooronbai Jeenbekov asking him to veto the bill of a deputy Gulshat Asylbaeva, adopted by the Parliament in the second and third readings yesterday.
The letter stresses that the Kyrgyz Republic is a sovereign, democratic, legal, secular, unitary, social state in which laws that abrogate and derogate the rights and freedoms of citizens are contrary to the Constitution. And by its decision, the Parliament ignored its main function — to represent and protect the interests of its voters, who publicly and loudly expressed their absolute disagreement with this bill.
«This law is detrimental to the development of freedom of speech and the media in Kyrgyzstan and prevention of corruption in the country, as it was written intentionally indistinctly for its arbitrary and selective application against any critical opinion and word. We are convinced that this law was adopted in order to limit freedom of speech in Kyrgyzstan, increase pressure on alternative opinions and nullify the activities of the media in the fight against corruption. Moreover, for a number of reasons, the expenditure of time and resources on creation of this document is completely useless, since the law is not feasible for a number of reasons. Moreover, this absurd and incoherent law was adopted with numerous violations of the regulations,» the letter says.
The public and experts once again stressed that the law threatens freedom of speech.
