The Investigative Journalism Foundation calls for an end to the practice of initiating criminal cases against the media and journalists who fulfill their professional duty of informing society and the state. Appeal of the Foundation posted on Facebook says.
Targeted persecution of mass media and journalists continues in Kyrgyzstan.
On March 3, 2022, director of Next TV channel Taalai Duishenbiev was detained and placed in the pre-trial detention center of the State Committee for National Security (SCNS). Work of the independent television channel was stopped. The SCNS charges the director of the channel with inciting racial, ethnic, national, religious inter-regional hatred (discord) for a quote on Facebook and Telegram.
«The fault of the independent TV channel is only that journalists quoted a statement by a former high-ranking official of Kazakhstan about events related to military operations in Ukraine on its accounts. We consider the attack on Next TV as a continuation of attempts to suppress freedom of speech in Kyrgyzstan! Temirov Live, Kaktus.media, Next TV journalists have become targets of unprecedented pressure from the security forces to prevent legally protected journalistic activity,» the appeal says.
The activities of the media and journalists are guaranteed by the Constitution by a number of laws, including the laws on the media and on protection of the professional activities of a journalist.
«We call for an end to the vicious practice of initiating criminal cases against the media and journalists who are fulfilling their professional duty. Bring to justice the leaders and employees of law enforcement agencies who give and / or carry out orders that violate the norms of the law,» the Foundation concluded.
Earlier, the SCNS made a statement that a criminal case had been initiated against the Next TV channel for inciting ethnic hatred. It is clarified that the TV channel, using resources on social media, is spreading false information about an allegedly reached agreement on the provision of military assistance by Kyrgyzstan to Russia during a special operation on the territory of Ukraine. The media referred to the former head of the National Security Committee of Kazakhstan as a source of information.
