The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemned a Kyrgyzstan court’s sentencing of two journalists on Wednesday.
The journalists, Joomart Duulatov and Aleksandr Aleksandrov, worked as cameramen for the well-known anti-corruption investigative agency Kloop . They were detained on May 28, charged with inciting riots, and each face five years imprisonment. Two unnamed accountants were also charged and sentenced to three years probation.
The defendant journalists alleged that Kloop and the accused had no involvement with the videos in question; rather, a separate YouTube-based investigative organization, Temirov Live , produced and distributed the videos. Temirov Live founder Bolot Temirov maintains that all content is his own organization’s work. Evidence for charges comprised