(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to President Askar Akayev, RSF expressed its outrage over the closure of the opposition weekly “Asaba” on 6 March 2001. “This brutal decision highlights the permanent attacks on press freedom in Kyrgyzstan. Financial pressure is asphyxiating all independent information,” stated Robert Ménard, the organisation’s secretary-general. The organisation asked that authorisation […]
(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to President Askar Akayev, RSF expressed its outrage over the closure of the opposition weekly “Asaba” on 6 March 2001. “This brutal decision highlights the permanent attacks on press freedom in Kyrgyzstan. Financial pressure is asphyxiating all independent information,” stated Robert Ménard, the organisation’s secretary-general. The organisation asked that authorisation be given for the newspaper “Asaba” to publish anew, and that the pressures weighing against the media cease.
According to information collected by RSF, on 6 March, the Leninskyi tribunal in Bishkek ordered the publishing house to cease publishing the newspaper “Asaba”. The decision follows the 20 October 2000 sentencing of the publication to pay a fine of 5 million soms (approx. US$101,700; 105,000 euros), for defamation. Turdakun Usubaliev, a member of parliament who is former secretary-general of the Kyrgyz Communist Party and close to President Akayev, had accused the newspaper of regularly “attacking his dignity” over the course of the last eight years, and was seeking fifty million soms in compensation (approx. US$1,017,150; 1,050,000 euros). On 20 February, the tribunal postponed the hearing of the appeal lodged by “Asaba” following the sentencing. In addition, “Asaba” recently lost an action brought against it on 20 February by the mining group Kumtor Operating Company, which is close to the Kyrgyz authorities. The suit involved an alleged 1994 company loan to the newspaper, which is currently the object of litigation. The newspaper was sentenced to pay a fine of over one million soms (approx. US$20,340; 22,500 euros). The tribunal ordered the stoppage of the newspaper’s publication since it is unable to pay the two fines.
RSF underlined that President’s Akayev’s regime has toughened its position on the media in recent months. The independent weekly “Res Publica” was barred from publishing on 21 February. The paper was unable to pay the 200,000 som fine (approx. US$4,070; 4,500 euros) it received at the conclusion of a defamation trial. The suit was brought against the paper in 1998 by Amandek Karypkulov, president of the national radio-television station (KTR), following the publication of an article in which he was accused of misappropriating three million soms (approx. US$61,000; 67,500 euros) (see IFEX alerts of 5 April and 24 March 2000).
The financial pressure brought to bear against newspapers has steadily increased in the former Soviet republic. Journalists from the national radio-television station who are viewed as troublesome are routinely dismissed, while the authorities in the country’s southern region are trying to block the broadcast of programmes from the region’s only independent television station, Osh-TV (see IFEX alert of 6 July 2000).
