In Kyrgyzstan, opposition newspaper is under threat of closure
The newspaper “Open Politics Plus” was awarded to pay officials more than $5000. The publication is confident that the authorities are making a political order to close the opposition media.
At the end of January this year, the Pervomaisky court ordered the company to pay $715 to an official from the Ministry of Health, and the newspaper managed to appeal another lawsuit from a prosecutor’s officer with a similar amount.
“The head of the drug supply and medical equipment department under the Ministry of Health of Kyrgyzstan, Gulmira Shakirova, won a lawsuit in the Pervomaisky District court against the newspaper “Open Politics Plus”. Initially, Shakirova demanded $7000 (500 000 KGS) from the publication as compensation for moral damage,” the editor-in-chief of the newspaper, Nazgul Mamytova, told the public association “Journalists”.
The lawsuit was triggered by materials that spoke of the overpriced prices of medicines and smuggled medicines.
The court granted the lawsuit, but partially. As compensation for moral damage, the publication was obliged to publish a refutation of previously published articles, and Gulmira Shakirova will receive $715 (50 000 KGS).
Despite the fact that the amount of the claim, satisfied by the court is ten times less than the one declared by Shakirova, the newspaper “Open Politics Plus” is under threat of closure. The total amount of claims to the newspaper today is more than $5000. Since in December last year, the Supreme Court upheld the decision according to which the publication should pay deputy Kozhobek Ryspaev $4300.
Recall, the parliamentarian sued the newspaper because of the publication of articles about his frequent transition from one party to another. The author of the materials compared him with a “chameleon”.
