Kyrgyzstan has risen in the ranking of press freedom. Its neighbors are at the bottom
Kyrgyzstan has improved its position in the press freedom rating. The republic has risen one position from 83 to 82 ranking line. Such data are provided by the international organization “Reporters without borders”.
The pluralism of Kyrgyz media is an exceptional occurrence in Central Asia, but the polarization of Kyrgyz society is reflected both in the media and among journalists.
“Although the reprisals against the media, that preceded the presidential election in 2017, are long over, journalistic investigations are still hesitant. They are hampered by difficulties in accessing information and are subjected to a lot of harassment, including physical violence, cyber-attacks and interrogations,” the study said.
The international organization emphasizes that corruption materials can still be very dangerous for independent journalists and the media, as it was noted in the case of Matraimov.
“The fight against extremism” is sometimes used as the basis for unreasonable harassment of users of social networks,” the IO “Reporters without borders” says.
In the ranking of press freedom, Kyrgyzstan is significantly ahead of its neighbors. So, Uzbekistan, having improved the result by 4 lines, is located at 156 place. Kazakhstan took the 157th position, Tajikistan – 161st, Turkmenistan rose from the 180th line to 179th.
Moreover, the document emphasizes that Tajikistan and Turkmenistan are in the black zone. In other words, they are the states with the worst situation of media independence.
