The closure of Azattyk Media will entail not only a restriction of freedom of speech and pluralism in the mass media, but also a restriction of citizens’ rights to access information.
JANUARY 24, 2023
On January 17, 2023, the Ministry of Culture, Information, Sports and Youth Policy of the KR (hereinafter the Ministry of Culture) filed a lawsuit to the Lenin District Court to terminate the activities of the institution “Azattyk Media” as the mass media Azattyk Radio. The ministry in its lawsuit referred to the Law of the KR “On Mass Media”, Article 23 “The List of Information Not Subject to Public Dissemination” and, specifically, to Clause “c”, which stated that “propaganda of war, violence and cruelty, national, religious exclusivity and intolerance towards other peoples and nations” were not allowed in the mass media. The Ministry of Culture in its lawsuit referred to its own decision dated October 26, 2022, issued against Azattyk Media to block the website of the editorial office based on the Law of KR “On Protection from Unreliable (False) Information” [1].
As we have previously reported [2], the law “On Protection from False (Unreliable) Information” has been applied illegally in this case, because the norms of this law regulate the dissemination of unreliable information, which according to the same law shall stand for “information that is not consistent with the reality disgracing the honor, dignity and business reputation of another person”. The mechanism prescribed by the law and the procedure for its implementation approved by the KR Cabinet of Ministers on April 8, 2022, envisage the blocking of the website exclusively at the request of citizens or legal entities who believe that unreliable information disgracing their honor, dignity or business reputation has been
disseminated. In this case, no such application was submitted to the Ministry. On October 24, 2022, the Ministry made a claim based on the law “On Protection from False (Unreliable) Information” [3] to delete the program, which had not been on the website, but on the social network Youtube, on the channel Present Time. Asia. The Ministry did not specify the complainant in that letter (regarding which the unreliable information disgracing the honour, dignity or business reputation of that person was supposedly disseminated) as there was no such person initially and there is no such person as of now. Therefore, we consider that the Ministry of Culture unlawfully and unreasonably exercised the authority to block the website of the Azattyk Media institution.
At present, the Ministry of Culture for the committed action is an administrative defendant in a claim brought by the Azattyk Media institution, which asks the court to declare the decision of the government authority to block the editorial office’s website illegal and unjustified. However, the Ministry of Culture, without waiting for the consideration of the administrative claim and the adjudication on the merits, is filing a claim to terminate the activities of Azattyk Media as the mass media.
The justification for the claim of the Ministry of Culture in the form of Azattyk Media’s violation of the norms regarding the prohibition of propaganda of war, violence and cruelty, national, religious exclusivity and intolerance towards other peoples and nations is a serious accusation. After all, propaganda is the deliberate and systematic dissemination of ideas and views to incite an armed conflict. Intolerance towards other peoples and nations should be based on calls for violence and humiliation or expressed by spreading information about the exclusiveness of any nation or people. However, the editorial office of Azattyk Media did not disseminate such information; only information from the official government authorities of the two states was provided.
The claim stated that the presenter of the program interviewed the representatives of both parties. In this case, the actions of the editorial office met the professional standards of journalists’ work, when information was gathered by providing arguments of both parties. The journalist of the Tajik party read full information from the press release prepared by the press center of the Tajik Border Forces. The information of the official government authorities of the Kyrgyz Republic was provided by a journalist from the Kyrgyz editorial office of Azattyk Media in the same program. According to Article 26 of the Law of the KR “On Mass Media”, the mass media are not responsible for the dissemination of information, which is not
consistent with the reality if such information is received from information agencies or press services of government and public agencies.
In addition, the editorial office of Azattyk Media refuted the information provided by the press service of the Tajik Border Forces. The Ministry of Culture confirmed this stating in its claim that a representative of Azattyk Media from the Kyrgyz party refuted this information. It should also be noted that information about the position of the Tajik government authorities helped our government authorities to respond promptly and timely to unreliable information disseminated in Kyrgyzstan. This was confirmed when the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the KR refuted the unreliable information disseminated by the Tajik Ministry of Foreign Affairs
The claim of the Ministry of Culture stated that an official from Tajikistan in the press release referred to an archival photo of the destroyed house as a tool of manipulation. We should point out, however, that Kyrgyz independent editorial offices specializing in fact-checking carried out a series of investigations and exposures of various kinds of disinformation disseminated on the topic of what was happening around the borders. Thus, independent media in Kyrgyzstan revealed the dissemination of unreliable information from the Tajik party, the use of trolls on social networks [4], and disinformation from the official sources of Tajikistan was exposed [5].
The existence of free, professional and responsible non-governmental media is difficult to overestimate in the face of threats to national security, since following professional standards in the search for the truth ensures the establishment of trust in the provided information. In this context, our journalists, who regularly improve their professional skills in investigation and fact-checking, have become a reliable source of information for the international community, which has used the materials of our journalists placing their trust in the provided photos and videos.
The termination of the mass media’s work by the court can only be recognized as justified if the mass media systematically and maliciously violate the requirements of the legislation entailing socially dangerous consequences and there is documented evidence to that effect. The claim brought by the Ministry is groundless, since it fails to provide real facts and grounds confirming the systematic violation of the legislation by Azattyk Media entailing socially dangerous consequences. The closure of Azattyk Media will entail not only a restriction of freedom of speech and pluralism in the mass media, but also a restriction of citizens’ rights to access information.
Based on the foregoing, we demand from the Ministry of Culture to withdraw the legal claim to terminate the activities of Azattyk Media and, in general, to stop the pressure on independent mass media.
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[1] The decision was made due to the material in the news broadcast on September 16, 2022 of the editorial office Present Time Asia with the headline: “Heavy fights on the border of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan” devoted to the armed conflict on the border in the Batken province.
[3] According to the Law of the Kyrgyz Republic “On Protection from False (Unreliable) Information”, if a party fails to comply
with a request to delete unreliable information, the enforcement action is to block the website.
