The International Press Institute (IPI) calls for an immediate, transparent investigation into the 1 November brutal beating of Kyrgyz journalist Kubanychbek Joldoshev in Kyrgyzstan’s southern Osh region.

Joldoshev, a correspondent for local newspaper Osh Shamy (“The Torch of Osh”), told Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) he was attacked after a taxi he was travelling in was stopped by traffic police, who took the driver away, allegedly for an alcohol-check. As soon as the police left with the taxi driver, three men approached the taxi and started beating Joldoshev. The police denied any involvement in the incident.

Joldoshev remains hospitalised with multiple injuries, although his health is improving.

“None of the attackers has been detained,” the director of RFE/RL’s Kyrgyz service, Tyntchtykbek Tchoroev, told IPI in a telephone conversation Thursday.

Tchoroev suggested that the attack against Joldoshev may have been a consequence of his recent coverage of student protests at Osh State University and criticism of the university’s rector.

In recent years, journalists in Kyrgyzstan have been the target of numerous attacks, perpetrated with virtually total impunity.

The Institute for Public Reporting in Kyrgyzstan has registered 58 cases of attacks against journalists since 2005, including two high-profile murders of outspoken reporters, RFE/RL reported. The Institute said six journalists had fled Kyrgyzstan seeking asylum.

On 4 July this year, journalist Almaz Tashiev was so badly beaten that he died a week later. Before he died, Tashiev, who worked for the independent newspaper Agym, also based in the Osh region, said he was attacked by drunken policemen after an argument. Authorities pressed criminal charges against one of the policemen.

“This is one of the rare cases in which the government is trying to bring the perpetrators to justice,” RFE/RL’s Tchoroev told IPI.

The October 2007 murder of Alisher Saipov, a Kyrgyz journalist and editor from the country’s ethnic Uzbek minority, well known for his reports on torture in the prisons of Uzbekistan and the plight of Uzbek refugees living in Kyrgyzstan, has yet to be resolved. Saipov was shot dead outside his office in Osh.

“It is unacceptable that journalists in Kyrgyzstan continue to be brutally beaten and killed,” said IPI Deputy Director Alison Bethel McKenzie. “Equally unacceptable is the apparent lethargy of the authorities when it comes to finding and prosecuting the perpetrators. IPI urges the Kyrgyz government to ensure that when a journalist is attacked a transparent, independent investigation is carried out, and in so doing to roll back the climate of impunity staining Kyrgyzstan’s international reputation.”