Joomart Duulatov, a former camera operator for independent outlet Kloop, has been detained since May 2025 on charges of calling for mass unrest.
Officers with Kyrgyzstan’s State Committee for National Security (SCNS) arrested Duulatov on May 28, amid a series of raids on journalists’ homes and Kloop’s office in which at least seven other current and former Kloop staff were detained.
Most of the journalists were released without charge after lengthy questioning, but authorities remanded Duulatov and camera operator Aleksandr Aleksandrov into pretrial detention.
Kloop founder Rinat Tuhvatshin called the arrests “abductions,” stating that the SCNS conducted searches and questioned the journalists without lawyers present and did not allow them to make any phone calls. Duulatov and Aleksandrov were not allowed access to a lawyer until their May 30 custody hearing, Tuhvatshin told CPJ.
Two unnamed Kloop accountants were subsequently also charged with calling for mass unrest.
In a May 30 statement, the SCNS accused Kloop of continuing operations despite authorities’ 2024 liquidation of its legal entity and said its “illegal work” was “aimed at provoking public discontent … for the subsequent organization of mass unrest.” The SCNS issued a video of the released Kloop staff apologizing for the outlet’s “destructive” publications about Kyrgyzstan President Sadyr Japarov and promising to cease collaboration with the outlet.
An international award–winning partner of the global investigative network Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), Kloop regularly publishes investigations into alleged corruption by Japarov and senior state officials.
The outlet’s website has been blocked in Kyrgyzstan since 2023. Kloop management has worked from exile since authorities shuttered its main legal entity, alleging that its publications contained “sharp criticism” of the authorities and aimed to incite a revolution.
The charges against the four Kloop current and former staff — punishable by up to eight years in prison — echo those brought in 2024 against 11 current and former staffers of anti-corruption investigative outlet Temirov Live.
The trial of Duulatov, Aleksandrov, and two Kloop accountants began on August 5, with all four pleading guilty to incitement. Kloop reported that the indictment did not refer to any Kloop publications, but instead cited publications by Temirov Live, with which the Kloop staff had no involvement. Tuhvatshin told CPJ he believes the detained staff confessed to the “absurd charges” under pressure or mistreatment.
CPJ emailed the State Committee for National Security in September 2025 for comment, but did not receive a reply.