CPJ calls on to immediately release Next TV director Taalaibek Duishenbiev
The international non-governmental organization Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) made a statement on the situation around the Kyrgyz TV channel Next TV.
CPJ, according to a statement posted on the organization’s website, calls on Kyrgyzstan’s authorities to immediately release Next TV director Taalaibek Duishenbiev, drop their investigation into the outlet, and allow it to work freely.
«As their attacks on the independent press intensify, Kyrgyz authorities appear to be resorting to any legal means, however spurious, to clamp down on critical outlets,» said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. «Authorities must immediately release Taalaibek Duishenbiev, drop the investigation into Next TV, and allow the station to resume broadcasting without interference.»
As CPJ says, the Facebook and Telegram posts by Next TV cited the Ukrainian outlet Ukraine Now, and Kyrgyzstan’s Defense Ministry later denied the allegations, which had been reported by a number of Ukrainian news outlets.
In its press release, the SCNS accused the broadcaster of spreading «false information» that «misleads the population of the Kyrgyz Republic and other countries and acts as a catalyzer for inciting interethnic strife.»
According to the organization, Duishenbiev’s lawyer Akmat Alagushev told CPJ in a phone interview that Duishenbiev denied the charges and they would appeal the decision to keep him in custody, as well as the sealing of the outlet’s studio and workspace, which he said investigators had carried out unlawfully.
Alagushev added that, as authorities had opened an investigation for alleged group conspiracy, charges could also be filed against other Next TV employees. He told CPJ that the charges against Duishenbiev were illegitimate not only because Next TV had simply republished allegations reported by another outlet, and that the information posed no threat to interethnic relations, but also because Next TV’s social media accounts were not legally related to the television station and were not verified accounts, so the outlet’s director and staffers should not be held responsible.
CPJ emailed the State Committee for National Security for comment, but did not immediately receive any reply.
Director of Next TV channel Taalai Duishenbiev was detained on March 3, 2022 and placed in the pre-trial detention center of the State Committee for National Security for two months under Article 330 «Inciting racial, ethnic, national, religious inter-regional enmity (discord)».
