This interview is from our 2025 Annual Impact Report
Press freedom in Kyrgyzstan has deteriorated sharply over the past two years. As legal pressure on independent media intensifies, we are spotlighting the Media Policy Institute (MPI) for its critical role in defending journalists and safeguarding freedom of expression. Media Defence has partnered with MPI for more than a decade to provide legal defence and strategic support. In 2025, we secured co-funding to expand this work and co-hosted a series of specialised legal training webinars to strengthen local defence capacity.
Through our long-standing partnership, we’ve seen the media space in Kyrgyzstan change dramatically. From your perspective, what have been the most significant changes over the past year?
In 2025, the situation regarding the rights of citizens, social media users, and journalists to freedom of expression in Kyrgyzstan continued to deteriorate. The sharp decline in the RSF index reflects increasing pressure on the media and worsening conditions for free journalistic activity.
Human rights defenders and journalists remain particularly vulnerable and face heightened risks of persecution and rights violations.
Although Kyrgyz citizens formally retain the right to protest and publicly express their opinions, in practice the authorities continue to ban public assemblies, significantly narrowing the space for expressing dissent.
Independent media outlets that criticise the authorities face pressure, threats, arrests or closure, substantially reducing pluralism and the real possibility of freely expressing alternative viewpoints.
These trends have been illustrated by court decisions ordering the liquidation of certain independent television channels and by the designation of others as extremist.
There has been a trend toward rising censorship and the adoption of legislation that restricts press freedom, including the 2025 mass media law and the law on protection from “false information”. What has that meant in real terms for journalists and newsrooms?
In practice, this means that journalists and editorial teams are operating in an environment of heightened legal uncertainty and increased risk of sanctions.
In conversations with our organisation, journalists report that legislative changes and existing law enforcement practices have led to growing self-censorship, and a decline in investigative reporting and critical publications.
Amendments have also been made to the Civil Procedure Code, allowing an organization, including a media outlet, to be declared extremist within just a few days (as occurred in the case of Kloop).
Taken together, these legal norms create an environment of uncertainty and risk of criminal prosecution for journalists and editorial teams, where any critical, investigative, or socially significant material may be qualified as an administrative offence or a criminal act. This results in avoidance of sensitive topics, journalists leaving the profession or moving into non-critical media fields, and, ultimately, a weakening of the media’s role as an institution of public oversight.
What legal threats are journalists most frequently facing, and how is MPI responding?
Journalists are most concerned about the risk of searches, interrogations, detentions, and summonses for so-called “informal conversations.” In such situations, MPI provides legal consultations and seeks to ensure that journalists have access to legal counsel.
Journalists are also alarmed by the possibility of interference in their private lives, covert video surveillance, or the dissemination of information obtained from seized electronic equipment. In these cases, MPI provides legal advice, accompanies journalists throughout legal proceedings, and develops recommendations and action guidelines for the protection of journalists’ rights.
Are lawyers defending journalists also facing risks?
Lawyers defending journalists face restrictions on access to detained clients and encounter obstacles imposed by investigators and courts. In the cases involving Kloop staff, MPI lawyers were not allowed to participate in interrogations and were prevented from fully exercising their right to defend their clients, while courts systematically rejected their motions.
The designation of the activities of the leadership of Kloop and Temirov Live, as well as their published materials, as extremist, has informally increased the risks for independent lawyers. Many now refrain from representing journalists, fearing accusations of “assisting extremist activity,” even in the absence of any legal grounds for such claims.
What sustains you and the journalists you support in this climate?
International solidarity, expressed through public statements by diplomatic circles and human rights organisations, pressure from international institutions, and participation in global journalist support networks is also critically important, as it reinforces the sense that journalists are not left isolated or alone.
In addition to our partnership with MPI, Media Defence supports independent investigative media in Kyrgyzstan through our Emergency Defence Programme, including staff from Kloop and Temirov Live.
Visit MPI’s website to learn more about there work, and learn more about Media Defence’s funded partner programme here.
