The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Kyrgyz authorities to reverse amendments to the country’s Code of Offenses, which took effect February 10, that recriminalize libel and insult on the internet and in media.

“Kyrgyzstan’s implementation of legislation that will make it easier to fine news outlets for defamation and insult is deplorable,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “The amendments mark yet another blow to the country’s once-free media sphere under President Sadyr Japarov’s authoritarian makeover, and should be repealed immediately.”

The amendments stipulate fines of 65,000 som (USD$750) on organizations and 20,000 som (USD$230) for individuals for alleged defamation and insult in the media and online. Under the new law, complaints will be handled by police and adjudicated by so-called administrative courts in an expedited format compared to civil law proceedings.

Kyrgyzstan previously decriminalized defamation in 2011 and insult in 2015.

Semetey Amanbekov, a member of local advocacy group Kyrgyzstan Media Platform, told CPJ that the enacted law is an improvement on a widely criticized draft granting a government ministry the power to levy larger fines extrajudicially.

However, he said the abbreviated administrative hearings make it “almost impossible” to adequately consider complaints and are instead designed to give officials a “quick route” to silence media “without the publicity of long civil cases,” through fines that could bankrupt Kyrgyz media outlets.

The amendments follow a controversial 2021 law used to restrict access to leading independent media in Kyrgyzstan by blocking websites determined to contain “false information.”

Since Japarov came to power in 2020, Kyrgyz authorities have launched an unprecedented crackdown on independent reporting in a country previously seen as a regional haven for the free press, shuttering key outlets and jailing journalists.

CPJ emailed the Office of the President of Kyrgyzstan for comment, but did not receive a reply.