CPJ details Kyrgyzstan’s media crackdown ahead of UN human rights review

The Committee to Protect Journalists has submitted a report on the state of press freedom and journalist safety in Kyrgyzstan to the United Nations Human Rights Council ahead of its 2025 Universal Periodic Review (UPR) session.

CPJ’s submission, together with Austria-based human rights group Freedom for Eurasia and the Free Russia Foundation, highlights the sharp deterioration in media freedom in Kyrgyzstan, once vaunted as a relative Central Asian safe haven for free press, since the country’s 2020 UPR review.

Following current President Sadyr Japarov’s rise to power, Kyrgyz authorities have launched an unprecedented assault on independent reporting, imprisoning journalists on retaliatory charges, blocking and shuttering key media, and introducing a Russian-style “foreign agents” law.

Read the full report here.