The trial of four former employees of Kyrgyz investigative outlet Kloop, which began in August, resumed hearings last week in Bishkek. The defendants entered pre-emptive guilty pleas in the face of charges of conspiring to “inciting mass unrest” in a case that apparently lacks references to actual Kloop material and includes expert testimony focused on videos produced by an entirely different outlet, Temirov Live.
Of the six witnesses who testified last week, ostensibly for the prosecution, not a single one made statements backing the core charge against the defendants.
The defendants – two accountants and two cameramen – were initially detained in late May alongside several other current and former Kloop employees (and some of their friends who happened to be with them when the security services arrived). While the authorities released journalists Aidai Erkebaeva and Zyyagul Bolot kyzy, and a former employee, Zarina Sydygalieva (as well as two unnamed women) after questioning, cameramen Alexander Alexandrov and Zhoomart Duulatov and two accountants, who have not been named in the media, were kept in custody and charged with conspiring to “incite mass unrest.”
As Eldiyar Arykbaev, a former editor-in-chief of Kloop, currently with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), chronicled earlier this week, this latest crackdown targeting Kloop follows in the wake of an effort last year against Temirov Live, including a sweep by security forces to detain journalists and media employees, charges of conspiring to “incite mass unrest,” and a trial.
“The methods tested on Temirov Live would soon be streamlined and redeployed against Kloop,” Arykbaev wrote.
The trial of Temirov Live’s staff concluded in October 2024 with seven of the 11 defendants outright acquitted of the charges. Two were given suspended sentences and two convicted and sentenced to jail terms: Makhabat Tazhibek kyzy – the director of Temirov Live and the wife of its founder, the exiled Bolot Temirov – was sentenced to six years and Azamat Ishenbekov, an akyn with the “Ait Ait Dese” project, was sentenced to five years.
As Arykbaev wrote earlier this week: “This spring, Ishenbekov was pardoned by the president, a reminder that Kyrgyzstan’s press freedom now depends on political whim.”
Tazhibek kyzy remains in prison.
When Alexandrov, Duulatov, and the two accountants were detained in May, the narrative that emerged from the state was one of collusion between Kloop and Temirov Live. The head of the presidential press service, Daiyrbek Orunbekov, took to Facebook immediately – before most of the journalist detained were released – to allege that they had been financed by Bolot Temirov “to conduct false investigations.”
Temirov, and Kloop founder Rinat Tukhvatshin, told OCCRP at the time that the allegation was unfounded.
“They’re trying to fabricate a case to suit this person’s sick fantasies,” Temirov told OCCRP, referring to Orunbekov. “I don’t even know most of those journalists.”
“All detained reporters are Kloop journalists or their friends. As far as I know, they never worked with Bolot,” Tukhvatshin added.
And it appears that the prosecutors don’t have evidence to made their case. Not that a lack of evidence has ever stopped a show trial.
When the indictment against the four Kloop employees was made public on August 30, Kloop quoted it in full and pointed out that the allegation – that the cameramen received materials from Kloop’s management, who in turn had received the materials from Temirov, to publish “joint investigations” – never actually happened. While Kloop and TemirovLive have collaborated in the past, none of the materials cited in the case are joint projects. The five specific videos referenced in the indictment were released by Temirov’s outlet, and not republished or produced in partnership with Kloop.
The videos cited in the indictment are: “The Rich Eat Meat, the Poor Eat Doshirak,” “Japarov Takes Gold to Cyprus,” “Waste and Repression: How the Authorities Shut Our Mouths,” “The Lies and Show of the Japarovs: Debts, Corruption,” and “ Kyrgyzstan’s Gold Has Disappeared, Who Took the Millions?”
When the trial resumed on September 1, six witnesses testified. As OCCRP and Kloop have reported, “none of the prosecution’s witnesses supported the charges against [the four defendants].” The witnesses were reportedly asked about their work and that of their colleagues and also asked about Temirov.
Erkebaeva – who testified that she did not work on investigative pieces – said that the cameramen worked on environmental stories and the accountants paid salaries. “I never saw any calls for unrest,” she said, Tandyr Media reported from the trial. That sentiment was repeated by the other witnesses, who had varying degrees of contact with the journalists at Kloop actually responsible for investigations.
On September 9 two expert witnesses – a linguist and a political scientist – testified as to their professional opinions of the videos and whether they contained “calls for mass unrest.”
Taalaibek Abdykozhoyev, the linguist, testified that the videos were negative in content, and cast the government as an enemy. But he also testified, “There are no direct calls for mass unrest. A direct call is, for example, ‘come with me to smash,’ ‘gather your friends.’ There is nothing like that in the presented materials.”
He stated that a slogan deployed by Temirov in the videos – “Freedom is not given, freedom is sought” – could be interpreted “as an incitement to action against the government.”
Nurbek Toktakunov, a lawyer following the case, told Kloop, “Expert Abdykozhoev equates criticism of the authorities, which is permitted by the Constitution, with calls for mass unrest.”
The political scientist, Aydin Omurzakov, was more direct, testifying that “[Bolot Temirov] only criticized, condemned and conducted a journalistic investigation. There were no specific announced calls like ‘follow me’ or ‘let’s change the constitutional order.’”
“He did not have any ideological or political motives for persuading anyone to do anything,” Omurzakov said, per Kloop’s reporting on the trial.
Both experts testified also that they did not see the defendants in the videos, nor did they see Kloop’s branding on them and they could not determine who produced the videos.
To summarize: two cameramen and two accountants have been charged with conspiring to “incite mass unrest” in a case that appears to rely on video materials published by an outlet they didn’t work for, which prosecution experts have testified don’t contain direct calls for mass unrest. Witnesses called by the prosecution also can’t recall any such calls for unrest.
It seems clear that the four former Kloop employees on trial are scapegoats for a government instinctively fearful of negative criticism.