ALMATY, Kazakhstan – Ignoring official warnings, many protesters marched in Kyrgyzstan’s capital, Bishkek, earlier this week in a final ditch to avoid a law that would seriously limit freedom of expression online.
Some say the law can do much more than that, potentially a tool to block accusations of a network of problematic corruption.
The bill, which was passed by Kyrgyzstan’s parliament on June 25 and is now awaiting the signing of President Sooronbai Jeenbekov, would allow the government to censor online data that it considers “false” or “inaccurate” by cutting off access to Internet sites and final social media. media accounts without a court order. Internet service providers also collect verified user data and maintain it for six months.
Kyrgyz legislators argue that the law is mandatory to counter the proliferation of false data from the COVID-19 pandemic and, according to Gulshat Asylbayeva, a member of parliament behind the bill, preserve other people’s right to protect their “honour and dignity” after facing the Internet from the affronts.
But critics have expressed fear that the government will be the pandemic as a pretext for cracking down on civil rights, with an opaque law that does not describe how the data would be considered false in the first place. Protesters who took to the streets on Monday suggested the president exercise his veto power.
“Given the vague wording and the lack of judicial oversight, the information law’s threat to freedom of speech and the media cannot be overstated,” said Mihra Rittmann of Human Rights Watch.
These views were echoed by Harlem Desir, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe’s representative on freedom of the media. “Vague legal definitions will not provide media and social media users with the necessary legal certainty in order to foresee the consequences of their activities,” he said.
The country’s lawyers and human rights defenders see the law as a tool to make accusations uncomfortable, as anyone can complain about false data and potentially block a site.
Recently, a series of articles alleging widespread corruption in Kyrgyzstan have appeared. Last November, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) teamed up with Kloop.kg, a local independent media outlet, and the U.S.-funded Radio Liberty to report on a massive cross-border smuggling ring that was allegedly working in league with Kyrgyzstan’s customs service.
The allegations were based on evidence from Aierken Saimaiti, a businessman from China’s Xinjiang province, who claimed to have transferred at least $700 million in money and transfers from Kyrgyzstan to locations over a five-year period.
Saimaiti, a self-proclaimed cash launderer, had kept detailed records pointing the finger at a network of corporations led through Khabibula Abdukadyr, a Chinese-born Uighur businessman, as the main beneficiary of the smuggling network’s funds. When the revelations were about to break, Saimaiti was shot dead in Istanbul.
For the smuggling operation to work, high-level connections were needed in Kyrgyzstan. The former deputy head of the Kyrgyz customs service, Raimbek Matraimov, claimed in saimaiti’s documents that this link was.
Matraimov vigorously denied the allegations against him and his circle of relatives and responded with defamation lawsuits. Although he worked in the public sector for most of his life, Matraimov is known in Kyrgyzstan for amassing a large fortune, earning him the nickname “Raim Million”.
An investigation into customs smuggling allegations was introduced in November, but progress has been glacial. A parliamentary committee in Kyrgyzstan that examined the killing and smuggling of Saimaiti concluded in mid-June that the millions of dollars transported across Kyrgyzstan, only about $1 billion, admitted the officials, in fact were not connected to Kyrgyzstan or Kyrgyzstan or foreign personal contractors working in Uzbekistan. Security facilities tried to deflect attention from the scandal by stating unsubstantiatedly that Saimaiti had paid investigators to smear Abdukadyr after a fight.
The government has pursued other instances of corruption with far more enthusiasm. On 23 June, Almazbek Atambayev, Jeenbekov’s predecessor as president and former mentor-turned-arch-enemy, imprisoned for 11 years after being convicted of ordering the illegal release of a gang leader imprisoned in 2013.
Atambayev denied the accusation and insisted that the case, which had opposed him after his struggle with the president, was political retaliation.
The former president’s imprisonment follows past cases that have noted that two former prime ministers with close ties to Atambayev were imprisoned for corruption. Sapar Isakov sentenced 15 years and Jantoro Satybaldiev to 7 and a half years ago for corruption similar to the award of a tender for the renovation of a thermal power plant in Bishkek to the Chinese company TBEA. Several boilers broke down at the plant in January 2018, leaving thousands of other people stranded without heat in freezing conditions.
This has served as China’s public symbol in Kyrgyzstan, where protests against China Strip and Route Initiative projects are rare.
With Kyrgyzstan’s economy hit hard by COVID-19 and parliamentary elections slated for later this year, President Jeenbekov will be hoping to put all these corruption scandals behind him.
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