The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) calls on Russian authorities to lift blocks on independent Kyrgyz news website 24.kg and exiled Tajik outlet Payom and to stop censoring foreign media for covering Russia’s war in Ukraine.
«Having already banned domestic media from reporting anything but state-sanctioned information, Russia’s censorship of international media outlets only shows how desperate it is to prevent its own people from accessing independent news about its invasion of Ukraine,» said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. «Takedown demands and blocks on Central Asian media outlets, which often have significant audiences in Russia, are unacceptable. All censorship of foreign media should end immediately.»
Roskomsvoboda, a Russian independent internet freedom group, reported that on September 12 an unspecified government agency blocked four of 24.kg’s web pages from October 2022 about the Ukraine war and two of Payom’s articles—a November 2022 speech by a Tajik politician in support of Ukraine and a February 2023 report about Russia potentially drafting individuals of Central Asian origin into the military.
A database maintained by Russian state media regulator Roskomnadzor also said that individual pages of those outlets were blocked.
However, according to Payom’s head of broadcasting Shavkatjon Sharipov and a 24.kg report, both websites were entirely blocked in Russia.
The decisions to restrict access to 24.kg news agency and Payom were taken in November 2022 and May 2023, respectively, but were only implemented on September 12.
In its report, 24.kg news agency said that it refused several requests in 2022 from Roskomnadzor to remove articles on the Ukraine war because the articles did not violate Kyrgyz law.
