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Hello John,
This week saw an alarming attempt by the government of Kyrgyzstan to extend its media crackdown beyond its borders. It also provided a flashing warning sign of how intergovernmental mechanisms — in this case, the international policing organization Interpol — risk being exploited by authoritarian governments. As OCCRP learned on Thursday, Kyrgyz authorities submitted a request for Interpol to issue a “Red Notice” — the closest thing to an international arrest warrant — for Rinat Tuhvatshin, co-founder of the award-winning OCCRP partner Kloop. Tuhvatshin and many of his colleagues are living in exile due to Kyrgyzstan’s deepening suppression of its once-vibrant free press. At home, Kloop has been ordered to liquidate because its journalism “affected people’s mental health.” It has been branded an “extremist organization,” and two of its cameramen are in prison. |
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| Kyrgyzstan has the same right as any other Interpol member state to submit Red Notice requests for its criminal suspects. The intent is to enable the capture of criminals who cross borders to escape justice. But the incident with Tuhvatshin raises the specter of repressive states roping the international community into doing their dirty work. The problem isn’t new. For years, researchers and human rights groups have been pointing to published Red Notices targeting Russian dissidents, Chinese “economic fugitives,” and opposition leaders from Venezuela to Tajikistan. As researcher Edward Lemon has argued, even changes designed to make Interpol systems more efficient — like its 2002 upgrade to a web-based dissemination system — can increase the danger of the system being misused. And “as the volume of notices and the breadth of their dissemination expand,” writes transnational repression expert Nate Schenkkan, “so do opportunities for abuse or error.” Researchers have credited Interpol with strengthening its oversight procedures. Indeed, a spokesperson told OCCRP that Kyrgyzstan’s request for Tuhvatshin was declined for being “politically motivated.” However, as reporters learned, Tuhvatshin’s Red Notice was visible to law enforcement authorities in at least one country and appeared as “pending review” in another. Interpol provided no on-the-record explanation for why a declined notice was still promulgated through its system. |
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| | | Kyrgyzstan Intensifies Crackdown on Independent Media |
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Three independent news outlets in Kyrgyzstan — including OCCRP member centers Kloop and Temirov Live — were banned and branded “extremist” organizations by a Bishkek court this week, in the latest escalation of a crackdown on media investigating corruption and criticizing the government. OCCRP learned yesterday that Bishkek had requested Interpol issue a “Red Notice” for Kloop co-founder Rinat Tuhvatshin, which could have paved the way for his arrest and possible extradition, had it been granted. However, Interpol spokesman Samuel Heath told OCCRP that there are “strict rules preventing [the] system from being used for political purposes”, which meant the Red Notice request was denied. Media freedom in Kyrgyzstan — once considered one of Central Asia’s freest countries — has been in sharp decline. In August, a controversial new media law was adopted stipulating that all media outlets must register with the state, and capping media foreign ownership at 35 percent. Last month, two former Kloop cameramen were sentenced to five years in prison, while two former accountants were given three years of probation. All four were accused of conspiring to “incite mass unrest.” “Kyrgyzstan has shown over and over again it will stop at nothing in its persecution of independent journalists,” said OCCRP editor-in-chief Miranda Patrucic, adding that “reporters abroad and at home are being targeted and facing arrest. This latest incident is a serious warning that no one is safe.” Read the full story → |
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| Our Stories Have ImpactSurgeon Barred in UK Suspended in Spain After OCCRP Revelations A doctor barred from practicing medicine in the United Kingdom has been suspended in Spain following revelations from a joint investigation by Spanish outlet infoLibre and the OCCRP-led “Bad Practice” project. The Colegio Oficial de Médicos de Alicante confirmed that Argentine-born surgeon Jorge Horacio Esbry had been provisionally suspended, and that disciplinary proceedings had been opened against him. Esbry, who worked at a London clinic from 2015, was struck off in 2020 over clinical misconduct, dishonest practices, and sexual behaviour involving a patient. Despite the U.K. sanction, Esbry had continued practicing as a cosmetic and reconstructive surgeon in Spain. Read the full story → |
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| | | Solomon Islands Water CEO Quits Amid Alleged Government Pressure to Work With Troubled Indian Firm |
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| The CEO of Solomon Islands’ state-owned water utility has resigned, along with a board member, amid government pressure to re-engage a firm that had previously been dropped due to its failure to deliver on the construction of a much-needed $15.6-million water treatment facility. OCCRP and our local member center, In-Depth Solomons, revealed in 2024 that Rean Watertech, an Indian joint venture, repeatedly missed deadlines and failed to carry out planned work on a plant intended to supply clean water to the capital, Honiara. Rean’s contract was terminated for non-performance in late 2023. The company countered with a legal challenge, which is still before the courts. Earlier this month, the Ministry of Mines, Energy and Rural Electrification ordered Solomon Water to settle the case and resume working with Rean. Shortly afterwards, Solomon Water CEO Carmine Piantedosi and board member Alan McNeil resigned. The Solomon Islands Water Authority initiated plans for the new facility after 2014, when heavy rains overwhelmed the decrepit water treatment system and floods spread waterborne diseases that killed over a dozen people, and infected thousands more with diarrhea. The ongoing lack of water sanitation continues to affect public health: In July this year, 3,000 people were infected in another outbreak of diarrhea in Honiara, and dozens of children were hospitalized. Read the full story → |
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| | Hong Kong Intercepts 150-Tonne Shipment of Donkey Skins |
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| Over 150 tonnes of donkey skins — worth nearly $200 million — were seized from two shipments in Hong Kong earlier this month. The skins were hidden in refrigerated containers bound for Taiwan, according to a statement from the customs office. One of the shipments also included shark fins, cigars, mobile phones, and suspected pharmaceutical products. Donkey skin is used to make Ejiao, a traditional Chinese remedy purported to have anti-aging qualities. Despite a continent-wide ban on the donkey skin trade imposed by the African Union last year, demand continues to surge. Animal rights groups say the ejiao trade is responsible for the deaths of around 5.9 million donkeys each year, and warn Africa could lose half of its donkey population by 2040 if the trade goes unchecked. Read the full story → |
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| | Will a New UN Mission Succeed in ‘Neutralizing’ Haiti’s Murderous Gangs? |
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| In Haiti, the U.N.-mandated “Gang Suppression Force” (GSF) has carried out its first patrols alongside police and military. However, questions remain about how effective the body will be in fulfilling its mission of “neutralizing” heavily-armed criminal gangs. It replaces the Kenyan-led Multinational Security Support Mission. During that mission’s two-year operation supporting police, gangs only grew in strength. More than 5,600 people were killed last year in Haiti, and armed groups now control as much as 90 percent of the capital, Port au Prince, according to the U.N. Gang expansion into rural areas displaced more than 1.3 million people this year. Read the full story → |
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| | US Lifts Sanctions Against Pro-Russian Bosnian Serb Leader |
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| The Trump administration this week lifted U.S. sanctions on Milorad Dodik, the pro-Russian leader of Bosnia’s Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Serb-dominated Republika Srpska region. Sanctions against his children, allies, and associated companies were also lifted. The move was the result of extensive lobbying efforts in Washington, D.C. Among those advocating on Dodik’s behalf were two figures with a direct line to Trump’s inner circle: former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and disgraced former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. The move was announced without explanation in a bulletin from the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). Dodik enjoys ongoing close ties with the Kremlin: He met Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov the day before sanctions were lifted. Dodik was sanctioned in 2017 for obstructing the U.S.-brokered Dayton Peace Agreement, the 1995 accord that ended the Bosnian war. In 2023, the Biden administration expanded sanctions to include Dodik’s family and associated companies, accusing them of facilitating “ongoing corruption.” Read the full story → |
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| | | | Prosecutors in Poland are seeking to charge former Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro with misusing $41.2 million in public funds to purchase Pegasus, Israeli spyware allegedly used to target opposition politicians.
In Mexico, human rights groups are calling for the government to “take a stand” against the killing of journalists, after the murder of reporter Miguel Ángel Beltrán, whose body was found last weekend in the northern state of Durango with a note that read, “For spreading lies about the people of Durango.”
The Committee to Protect Journalists this week said it was “deeply alarmed by the unprecedented wave of violence and impunity” facing journalists and civilians in El Fasher in Sudan’s North Darfur region, amid mounting violence and atrocities by Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
A decade on from the landmark Paris climate accord, researchers are warning that hundreds of new and existing fossil fuel projects could push the planet far beyond its remaining carbon budget.
Unrest continues in Morocco, as demonstrators call for the release of more than 1,000 detained for taking part in earlier nationwide protests over corruption, health, and education services.
Pakistan’s Navy is touting some of its largest-ever narcotics busts, following joint operations on the Arabian Sea with Saudi-led Combined Maritime Forces, in which about $1 billion worth of drugs, including two tons of crystal methamphetamine, and cocaine worth a total of about $972 million, were seized.
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