Amnesty International on Friday urged Kyrgyzstani authorities to end journalist Makhabat Tazhibek-kyzy’s imprisonment and quash all charges against her, The Caspian Post reports, citing Jurist News.

Marie Struthers, Amnesty International’s Eastern Europe and Central Asia director, said that authorities face “a clear and unavoidable choice: uphold their international human rights obligations or continue to defy them.” She added:

The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has unequivocally concluded that Makhabat Tazhibek-kyzy’s imprisonment is unlawful, her conviction must be quashed, and she must be immediately released and compensated for the violations suffered. There is nothing ambiguous, optional or symbolic about this decision.

Tazhibek-kyzy’s defense team submitted a petition to the Kyrgyzstan Supreme Court urging the journalist’s release on the grounds that her conviction was wrongful. The court is expected to consider the petition on February 2.

In October 2025, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention released its legal opinion on the case, finding that authorities arbitrarily detained the journalist after she lawfully exercised her right to free speech. The working group concluded that the detention was arbitrary on the basis that she was denied due process, the law used to charge her was overbroad, and that she was targeted based on her opinions expressed in her capacity as a journalist.

Tazhibek-kyzy is the current director of YouTube-based media outlets Temirov Live and Ait Ait Dese, which investigate and report on alleged corruption by state and non-state actors in Kyrgyzstan. Law enforcement raided Tazhibek-kyzy’s office at Temirov Live in January 2024 and arrested her, and she was subsequently charged with criminal offenses of organizing, promoting, and planning mass civil unrest under the Criminal Code of the Republic of Kyrgyzstan. Tazhibek-kyzy was sentenced to six years’ imprisonment in October 2024. The appeal court upheld the conviction.

While the Kyrgyz Constitution recognizes certain human and civil rights, Article 23.2 imposes specific limits. The article states, “Human and civil rights and freedoms may be restricted by the Constitution and laws with the aim of protecting national security, public order, public health and morals, and the rights and freedoms of others.” Article 32.2 grants everyone “the right to freedom of expression, freedom of speech and freedom of the press.”

In July 2025, the Committee to Protect Journalists asserted that there has been a broad legislative campaign to suppress freedom of speech since President Sadyr Japorov came into power in 2020. This includes the 2021 Law on Protection from Unreliable (False) Information, which empowers the government to extrajudicially block news websites for what it deems false news, and the July 2025 amendments to the Kyrgyz Code of Offenses, which fines for spreading false or misleading information on the internet.