Feared Kyrgyz Prosecutor on Chopping Block

Six months into his term, President Jeenbekov is putting his own stamp on the country, dismaying his predecessor.

12 April 2018

Kyrgyzstan’s parliament yesterday backed President Sooronbai Jeenbekov’s (pictured) request to sack an official linked with attacks on opposition politicians and independent media.

 

Parliament supported the ouster of Prosecutor General Indira Joldubaeva in a 105-2 vote on 11 April, RFE/RL reports.

 

Joldubaeva will soon become the latest security or justice official appointed by former President Almazbek Atambaev to be fired.

 

Joldubaeva’s sacking could be a purposeful tweak at Atambaev. The former president made clear his expectations Jeenbekov would continue the policies he implemented and keep key officials on board, RFE wrote earlier this month.

 

Since Jeenbekov took office in November, Atambaev had mostly stayed away from politics, but he recently criticized Jeenbekov’s poor leadership when a power plant breakdown brought misery to Bishkek last winter.

 

On 7 April, Jeenbekov dismissed State Committee for National Security (GKNB) chief Abdil Segizbaev, who, like Joldubaeva, had the target of criticism as a cog in the Atambaev administration’s crackdown on opposition politicians and independent journalists.

 

Two GKNB deputy heads also lost their jobs last week, Eurasianet.org reports.

 

During Joldubaeva’s four years in office several opposition politicians, activists, and lawmakers were prosecuted and some of them imprisoned, RFE says.

 

Critical journalists also came under fire. Lawsuits for defamation against media outlets, journalists, and human rights defenders brought by Joldubaeva’s office “have had a chilling effect on free speech,” Human Rights Watch charged last May.

 

 

• In December Kyrgyzstan’s anticorruption agency tried to shut down a Bishkek television station believed to be controlled by former presidential candidate Omurbek Babanov.

 

• After ending his six-year term as president, Atambaev reclaimed leadership of the Social Democratic Party of Kyrgyzstan, “which holds the largest bloc of seats in parliament and which could potentially reemerge as a counterweight to the president’s office,” Eurasianet writes.