The Prosecutor General’s Office terminated the criminal case against Kaktus.media concerning the publication about the armed conflict in the border zone. This was reported by the Department.
The case was dismissed on March 31 for lack of corpus delicti. However, this became known only now.
On January 27, the editors of Kaktus.media posted on their website the position of the Tajik media Asia Plus concerning the causes of the conflict on the Kyrgyz-Tajik border. The next day, on January 28, a rally was held near the editorial office. Outraged protesters demanded to close their office.
Later it became known that the Prosecutor’s Office of Pervomaiskiy district of Bishkek opened a criminal case on the fact of publication under article 407 “Propaganda of war, that is, dissemination of views, ideas or appeals in any form with the aim of causing aggression of one country against another or unleashing a military conflict” of the Criminal Code of the Kyrgyz Republic. An investigation was launched to provide a legal assessment of the legality of the published information.
As part of the investigation, the editorial staff was summoned for questioning by the Prosecutor’s Office.
The lawyer of the Institute of Media Policy Nurbek Sydykov, who represented the interests of journalists who became defendants in the criminal case, said that in this case there is no corpus delicti. It took two months for the investigation to come to this conclusion.
