The head of Civil Initiatives Public Foundation Dinara Oshurakhunova asks the OSCE representatives to influence the abolition of the law on protection against false information adopted in Kyrgyzstan in 2021. The activist made a speech at the annual OSCE Human Dimension Conference in Warsaw.

According to her, this initiative negatively affects freedom of speech and harms independent media.

«Under the pretext of combating false information, a law was adopted in Kyrgyzstan providing for the elimination of certain content in the Internet space. The developed mechanism is a threat to the journalism of the Kyrgyz Republic. Citizens have the right to file a complaint against any publication or website, on the basis of which the content may be blocked. We call on the OSCE and all international partners to ask our government to repeal this law,» Dinara Oshurahunova said.

Akmat Alagushev, a lawyer of Media Policy Institute, also spoke at the conference and said that «the signs of authoritarianism are getting stronger» in the republic.

«We draw the attention of the international community to the deteriorating situation with freedom of speech in Kyrgyzstan due to the growing signs of authoritarianism in the political model of the country... The Kyrgyz Republic does not comply with the UN recommendations of 2020 on the need to amend Article 330 of the Criminal Code in order to bring it into compliance with articles 19 and 20 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,» he said.

The Media Policy Institute monitored the situation with freedom of speech in Kyrgyzstan from October 2020 to March 2022 and announced a deteriorating trend in the situation with freedom of speech, while the international human rights organizations Human Rights Watch and the Helsinki Committee called on the authorities of the republic to stop persecuting independent journalists and media.