New York, March 21, 2007—The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by the recent beating of a television journalist who reported on corruption at a railroad company in Kyrgyzstan. Kairat Birimkulov, reporter for the Kyrgyz main state broadcaster Government TV and Radio Company (GTRK), was attacked by two unidentified men on March 16 near his…
KYRGYZSTAN Months of discontent over President Kurmanbek Bakiyev’s failure to enact reforms to combat crime, corruption, and economic woes boiled over in November when thousands of protesters gathered for a week of demonstrations in the central square of the capital, Bishkek. Bakiyev, ushered into office in a popular uprising just 19 months earlier, averted a…