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CPJ welcomes Kyrgyzstan’s release of journalist Makhabat Tajibek kyzy, calls for charges to be dropped

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CPJ welcomes Kyrgyzstan’s release of journalist Makhabat Tajibek kyzy, calls for charges to be dropped

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New York, March 23, 2026—The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes Kyrgyz journalist Makhabat Tajibek kyzy’s release from prison and calls on authorities to drop all charges against her.

In 2024, Tajibek kyzy, the director of anti-corruption investigative outlets Temirov Live and Ait Ait Dese, was convicted on charges of calling for mass unrest and sentenced to six years in prison. Earlier this month, Kyrgyzstan’s Supreme Court overturned the decision, sending her case back to a lower court for review on the basis of a United Nations Working Group decision that said she had been arbitrarily detained.

“The release of Makhabat Tajibek kyzy from prison is a rare and significant step in the right direction in a country that has been making headlines in recent years for all the wrong reasons,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “But this is not enough. Tajibek kyzy should not have spent a single day behind bars on what are clearly trumped-up charges. Kyrgyz authorities should follow through by withdrawing all charges against her without delay.”

At an initial retrial hearing on March 23, the court in Bishkek rejected the journalist’s petition to dismiss the case but granted her request to be freed pending a verdict. She remains under a travel ban, however. The next hearing is scheduled for April 7.

Tajibek kyzy was among 11 current and former journalists from Temirov Live, a local partner of the global Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), arrested in January 2024 on allegations of incitement. Authorities argued that the outlet’s reporting, which frequently investigates allegations of corruption at the top levels of the Kyrgyz state, “discredited” the government, thereby “indirectly” calling for mass unrest. In October 2024, Tajibek kyzy was convicted alongside Ait Ait Dese presenter Azamat Ishenbekov, who was sentenced to five years in prison. Ishenbekov was later released after a presidential pardon.

The conviction of Tajibek kyzy is part of an unprecedented crackdown on investigative and independent reporting in Kyrgyzstan in recent years. In 2022, authorities deported Bolot Temirov, Temirov Live’s founder and CPJ’s 2025 International Press Freedom Award winner. Temirov, who is married to Tajibek kyzy, was effectively stripped of his Kyrgyz citizenship. In October 2025, authorities declared Temirov’s work, that of his outlets, and the work of another OCCRP member — investigative outlet Kloop — “extremist,” banning their distribution in the country.

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Nor were they granted the underdog status they might have exploited to attract sympathy and support. At the time though, ACLU’s position was deeply unpopular. Many were outraged that the principle of free speech was being evoked in the name of Nazism. ACLU lost members. It was not an easy case to fight. Today we find ourselves in a similar predicament. Across the political spectrum and across the world, people are marching – some for causes that align closely with universal human rights and others that do not. In some instances, the causes being championed are in fact in direct opposition to freedom of expression. More worrying still, illiberal causes are increasingly being cloaked in the language of human rights and social justice. Some protest movements borrow the vocabulary of tolerance while aligning themselves with groups or regimes that have little regard for it. A report released this month even exposed several UK charities as having links to the Iranian regime. 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