The prosecutor in the trial of Kyrgyz blogger Yryskeldi Jekshenaliev, who was arrested in August on charges of making public calls for mass disorder and violence, asked a Bishkek court on November 16 to convict and sentence the defendant to seven years in prison. The probe against the 20-year-old blogger was launched in August 2022. His arrest came hours after President Sadyr Japarov condemned unspecified "defenders" of the environment in the region, calling them "false patriots and liars." The charges against Jekshenaliev stem from his Facebook posts about ecological problems at an iron-ore mining complex.