Kyrgyz Prosecutor's Office drops lawsuit against local RFE/RL service at president's request
BISHKEK. June 1 (Interfax) - The Kyrgyz Prosecutor General's Office has withdrawn its defamation lawsuit of almost $150,000 that was filed against Radio Azattyk, which is the Kyrgyz service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), after Kyrgyzstan's President Almazbek Atambayev accused RFE/RL's Kyrgyz service of slander, Kyrgyz media said.
Kyrgyz Prosecutor General's Office representative Ruslan Abdyrakhman said during a court session on Wednesday that the Prosecutor General's Office would ask the court to drop the claims against Radio Azattyk. The court ruled in favor of the request.
In early March, the Kyrgyz Prosecutor General's Office filed lawsuits against Radio Azattyk and the website Zanoza.kg seeking to protect the honor, dignity and business reputation of the president worth ten million som ($147,000) and three million som ($45,000), respectively.
The lawsuits were filed over information released by the media, citing lawyers from the opposition party Ata-Meken (Homeland), stating that the cargo carried by the Boeing that crashed near Bishkek on January 16 belonged to the president's family and that relevant documents had allegedly been obtained from the Turkish special services. At the same time, the embassy of Turkey in Kyrgyzstan called those documents fake. Lawsuits worth ten million som ($147,000) have also been filed against the Ata-Meken lawyers.
Atambayev met with Thomas Kent, president of the media corporation Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, at his personal request on March 30. The meeting addressed issues regarding the balance and objectivity of coverage of events taking place in the country, issues relating to the impartiality of journalism, and the causes of the ideas that specific journalists are biased. The meeting also addressed the unacceptability of discrediting the most important principles of freedom of speech.
On May 12, Atambayev suggested that the republic's Prosecutor General's Office withdraw its lawsuit against Radio Azattyk.
"Over the time that has passed since the meeting, a positive tendency has been observed in the work of Radio Azattyk, which ensured a greater balance of the materials aired and reported by this media organization," the presidential press service said at the time.
"The litigation made the entire media community and non-governmental sector more active, and, most importantly, it promoted a debate on the quality of the work of journalists and the need to revise some stereotypes that led to the discrimination of freedom of speech. All these processes inside the media community, in Atambayev's opinion, lead to improvements in the national information space," the press service said.
In its statement issued on May 26, the International Federation for Human Rights called on the European Union to exert its influence on the Kyrgyz authorities in order to persuade them to immediately stop persecution of independent media outlets.
