Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls on Kyrgyzstan’s parliament to reject a media law that is based on Russian legislation and threatens the very existence of independent media in a country hitherto seen as an oasis of relative freedom in Central Asia. Statement of the organization says.
Alarmed by the way that copies of draconian Russian laws have been spreading in former Soviet countries in recent months, RSF also urges Kyrgyzstan’s parliamentarians to reject a proposed NGO law that is directly based on a law used to harass media outlets in Russia.
Under the proposed media law — which the Kyrgyz parliament is due to vote on before the summer break and which is even more restrictive than four earlier drafts — all media outlets would have to register with the Justice Ministry or Digital Development Ministry, and the government itself, via a complex procedure, would be able to approve or reject their registration requests. Unregistered media would be regarded as illegal and would not be able to obtain accreditation.
As RSF notes, the proposed NGO law is based on Russia’s «foreign agents» law. It would restrict media coverage of NGO activities and would provide for criminal penalties of up to ten years in prison on a charge of «propaganda.»
The epidemic of repressive laws spreading from a diseased Russia in recent months is now hitting Kyrgyzstan hard. If freedom of expression was President Japarov’s ‘absolute priority,’ as he again claimed on 5 May, he would not have proposed this new media law, which strengthens his control over the press.
Jeanne Cavelier, head of RSF’s Easter Europe and Central Asia desk
«We call on parliament to reject this bill and the one on NGOs, which would push Kyrgyzstan into the camp of authoritarian regimes led by Vladimir Putin,» she added.
