A journalist for an online news website in Kyrgyzstan says he was fired this week shortly after asking an “inconvenient” question at a press conference with President Almazbek Atambayev.
Avtandil Dobulbekov, a reporter with Super.kg, wrote on Facebook on July 25 that he was given the news after returning from Cholpon-Ata, the Issyk-Kul resort town where the event took place.
“After yesterday’s press conference with the president they are ‘exiling’ me for a undetermined period. I was coming back from Cholpon-Ata and this was the surprise waiting for me in the newsroom. God willing we will see one another again,” Dobulbekov wrote.
The offending query posed by the reporter was why Atambayev so often “criticized” the Kyrgyz people.
“At the opening of the monument to [the participants of the bloody popular uprising of April 7, 2010] that took place in 2012 you said that it should not be forgotten that the authorities in Kyrgyzstan can only remain strong with the trust of the people. But lately you have criticized the people and expressed your unhappiness with foreign leaders. And so…” Dobulbekov began asking before he was brusquely cut off by Atambayev.
The president angrily claimed that his words are routinely misinterpreted by the media and that Dobulbekov should be more professional.
“Hey pal, don’t forget, at the time I was talking about journalists and some politicians. I don’t know who taught you to distort people’s words, but I will answer for my words. Now you ask proper questions, and don’t deceive people. People will listen to you and think that Atambayev is criticizing the people, but you are the one criticizing them,” the president raged.
Super.kg chief editor Elvira Karayeva told EurasiaNet.org that she did not wish to comment on the situation with Dobulbekov. But she then added that the reporter was not around to comment himself “of his own volition” and abruptly ended the phone call.
Atambayev has never been especially friendly with independent media, but he has grown pathologically sensitive of late and regularly lashes out in harsh terms against his perceived critics.
The worst treatment has been reserved for Zanoza.kg, which has been inundated with a barrage of crippling and largely spurious libel lawsuits, filed by the General Prosecutor’s Office on Atambayev’s behalf, that have burdened the publication with massive damages bills. RFE/RL’s Kyrgyz service was targeted with similar legal action, but managed to avert court action after the broadcaster’s president Tom Kent traveled to Kyrgyzstan to plead with Atambayev in person.
Nurjamal Djanibekova is a journalist based in Bishkek.
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