A search was conducted at about 4.30 p.m. in the house of Kloop employee Abdila Aitbay Tegin, and he was later taken to the State Committee for National Security. The media outlet reported.
Aitbay Tegin managed to tell his colleagues that the police had come to him, and then stopped responding. An hour and a half later, it became known that his home had been searched, his equipment had been seized, and he had been detained.
According to Kloop co-founder Rinat Tukhvatshin, Abdil Aitbay Tegin is neither a journalist nor a cameraman.
«This is our employee, but he did not participate in the creation of journalistic materials, did not write texts, did not shoot videos. Therefore, it is obvious to us that law enforcement officers are interested in everyone associated with our media outlet, even those who were not involved in journalism,» Rinat Tukhvatshin said.
This is the sixth detention of former and current employees of the media outlet over the past two days.
Prior to this, Ziyagul Bolot kyzy, Aleksandr Aleksandrov, current Kloop journalist Aidai Erkebaeva, former Kloop employee Zara Sydygalieva, and former Kloop camera operator Zhoomart Duulatov were interrogated at the State Committee for National Security. It later became known that the girls were released, but the camera operator and former employee were detained for two days. According to the journalists’ lawyer Baktybek Avtandil uulu, Aleksandr Aleksandrov and Zhoomart Duulatov are suspected of calls for mass riots.
The State Committee for National Security has not yet provided official information about the reasons for the journalists’ detention.
In 2023, the prosecutor’s office filed a lawsuit to shut down Kloop Media Public Foundation. As a result of the trials, it was liquidated in 2024.