In UN complaint, Azimjon Askarov seeks justice, freedom

CPJ Blog

Press Freedom News and Views

By Muzaffar Suleymanov/CPJ Europe and Central Asia Research Associate

Lawyers for imprisoned investigative reporter Azimjon Askarov, who is serving a life term in Kyrgyzstan on charges widely seen as politically motivated, filed an appeal today with the U.N. Human Rights Committee that seeks his release.

Five years on, no resolution to Alisher Saipov's murder

Muzaffar Suleymanov/CPJ Europe and Central Asia Research Associate
Five years ago today, press freedom in Kyrgyzstan received a deadly blow from which it has never recovered. Alisher Saipov, one of most promising and prominent regional reporters of his time, was murdered in his native city of Osh. Since that October night, authorities have promised to solve his killing, but impunity reigns to this day, Shohruh Saipov, his brother and also a journalist, told CPJ.

A litmus test for Kyrgyzstan's anticorruption campaign

Muzaffar Suleymanov/CPJ Europe and Central Asia Research Associate

Campaigners from local rights activists to U.N. Higher Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay are urging Kyrgyz authorities to review the case of Azimjon Askarov, an investigative reporter and human rights activist serving a life sentence in Kyrgyzstan.

Investigative reporting and Kyrgyzstan's selective justice

Muzaffar Suleymanov/CPJ Europe and Central Asia Research Associate

At a Bishkek round-table Tuesday, called "The Fourth Estate: Rule of the Game," Almambet Shykmamatov, Kyrgyzstan's justice minister, encouraged local reporters to expose government corruption, local press reported. The minister said authorities would follow up on such reports, grant security to investigative journalists, and might even pay them up to 20 percent of the funds that corrupt officials return to state coffers.