A journalist in Kyrgyzstan was beaten and robbed in an attack he said on Friday was punishment for his reporting on corruption, and which drew condemnation from the United States. A police spokesman in the capital Bishkek told AFP that the crime, which saw journalist Bolot Temirov attacked outside his media outlet's office on Thursday, had been registered as a theft.
Temirov - editor-in-chief of investigative website Factcheck.kg - said two assailants inflicted several injuries to his face, damaged a tooth and stole his telephone.
"Unknown people tried to find out from neighbours where our office was," Temirov wrote in a Facebook post on Friday. The attackers ignored his laptop and other items of value, he said, labelling the incident "an attempt to frighten" him.
The US embassy in Bishkek called for a "prompt investigation", adding: "Press can only be free when journalists are able to work without intimidation and threats."
Factcheck.kg was briefly disabled last month by a cyberattack after it published an article about the expensive tastes of the wife of Rayimbek Matraimov, a powerful former official. Matraimov has been the target of two anti-corruption rallies and is widely believed to be one of the ex-Soviet republic's most influential men, despite no longer holding an official position. He is at the centre of media claims that hundreds of millions of dollars were spirited out of the country by an "underground cargo empire" and funnelled into foreign companies.
Matraimov has denied wrongdoing and has not been charged. Last month the partner of top anti-corruption campaigner Shirin Aitmatova was detained in what she claimed was an attempt to halt her activism.
Two Kyrgyz presidents have been overthrown - in 2005 and 2010 - following mass protests driven in part by anger over corruption and nepotism. Current incumbent Sooronbai Jeenbekov has declared his intent to root out corruption but has had to battle perceptions that he is beholden to Matraimov.
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