Kyrgyzstan Supreme Court upholds shuttering of investigative outlet Kloop

New York, August 29, 2024—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the decision by Kyrgyzstan’s Supreme Court in July to uphold the liquidation of Kloop Media, a nonprofit that runs the investigative news website Kloop.

“The forced shuttering of international award–winning investigative outlet Kloop is a shameful episode in the history of modern Kyrgyzstan — a country long viewed as a haven for press freedom in Central Asia — and is a clear indication that under President Japarov this reputation no longer holds,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “Kyrgyz authorities should immediately reverse their repressive course against the media and allow Kloop and all other independent outlets to work freely.”

On Thursday, Kloop reported that the Supreme Court on July 16 had upheld a lower court’s refusal to hear its appeal against a February liquidation order. The decision, which Kloop learned of on August 22, marks the end of the outlet’s hopes of overturning that liquidation.

Kloop founder Rinat Tuhvatshin said the decision was “expected” but that the organization plans to keep publishing “the most penetrating investigations, the most balanced news, and the sharpest commentary.”

Kyrgyz prosecutors applied to shutter Kloop, a local partner of the global investigative network Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), in August 2023 and blocked its website amid a series of corruption investigations into relatives of Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov and other top state officials.

Under Japarov, Kyrgyz authorities have launched an unprecedented crackdown on independent reporting in a country previously seen as a regional beacon for the free press.