ZCZC
BFF-42
KYRGYZSTAN-MEDIA-CRIME-CORRUPTION
Four detained over Kyrgyz journalist beating
BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan, Jan 14, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – Police in Kyrgyzstan said
they were holding four suspects on Tuesday over the beating of a journalist
known for investigating corruption, an incident that triggered international
condemnation.
Bolot Temirov, 40, was attacked outside his media outlet’s office in the
capital Bishkek last Thursday and had his telephone stolen.
The interior ministry said it was holding four residents of the southern
Jalal-Abad region over the attack, which was condemned by the United States
and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
Temirov — editor-in-chief of investigative website Factcheck.kg — was
photographed with injuries to his face and said he damaged a tooth in the
attack.
He called the incident “an attempt to frighten” him.
The US embassy in Bishkek called for a “prompt investigation”, adding:
“Press can only be free when journalists are able to work without
intimidation and threats.”
The OSCE’s media freedom chief Harlem Desir also condemned the attack and
said that “no intimidation of journalists should be tolerated”.
Factcheck.kg was briefly disabled by a cyberattack last month after it
published an article about the expensive tastes of the wife of Rayimbek
Matraimov, a powerful former official.
Matraimov has been the target of two anti-corruption rallies and is widely
believed to be one of the ex-Soviet republic’s most influential men, despite
no longer holding an official position.
He is at the centre of media claims that hundreds of millions of dollars
were spirited out of the country by an “underground cargo empire” and
funnelled into foreign companies.
Matraimov has denied wrongdoing and has not been charged. Last month the
partner of top anti-corruption campaigner Shirin Aitmatova was detained in
what she claimed was an attempt to halt her activism.
Two Kyrgyz presidents have been overthrown — in 2005 and 2010 —
following mass protests driven in part by anger over corruption and nepotism.
The impoverished landlocked Muslim-majority country of six million people
hosts a Russian airbase and looks to China for investments and credit.
BSS/AFP/SSS/1648 hrs