Toktosun Shambetov is a correspondent for RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service.
Kyrgyzstan has never experienced the mass arrests of journalists before. Currently, 11 media members have been detained. The Central Asian country is undergoing a crackdown on civil society and independent media. International human rights organizations view this as an attack on freedom of speech.
Opposition activist Lev Skoryakin -- who is wanted by Moscow for taking part in a protest at a Russian Federal Security Service building in 2021 -- has allegedly been abducted in Kyrgyzstan just a few days after Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Bishkek.
Amid power shortages in the country, Kyrgyzstan is looking to revive a long-troubled venture along the Naryn River, but questions remain over the viability of the plan and the Chinese companies chosen for the project.
A growing number of private Russia-based firms are offering services to obtain Kyrgyz citizenship for their Russian clients. It comes as Russians continue to leave their homeland in a bid to avoid military service and escape the economic fallout from Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov’s public appearance with a Chinese-born businessman at the heart of a media investigation into contraband in Kyrgyzstan has raised questions about the government’s commitment to combating corruption.
From brutal beatings to suffocation with plastic bags, police in Kyrgyzstan have been accused of using torture tactics on hundreds of people.
Kyrgyz officials accuse top religious authorities of colluding with a controversial Islamic group to send young children to foreign religious schools. Some family members with children in the program are taking exception.
