The Committee to Protect Journalists, together with the Center for International Human Rights at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law and civil society organization Precedent Group, on December 14 submitted a letter to three United Nations special rapporteurs regarding the wrongful conviction and arbitrary deportation of Kyrgyz investigative journalist Bolot Temirov from his home country.
In January 2022, Kyrgyz police raided Temirov’s outlet, Temirov Live, two days after it published an investigation alleging corruption by family members of the head of Kyrgyzstan’s state security services. Police arrested Temirov on drug charges after appearing to plant drugs on him in that raid, and later added charges that Kyrgyzstan-born Temirov forged documents to obtain a Kyrgyz passport. A court acquitted Temirov on the drug charges and found him guilty of using forged documents but did not apply a punishment as the statute of limitations had expired. In spite of this, authorities later deported the journalist as additional punishment for the forged documents charge.
Read the letter, which alleges that Kyrgyzstan violated international law with Temirov’s deportation, in full below.