A Kyrgyz court on May 14 sentenced government critic and journalist Oljobai Shakir (aka Egemberdiev) to five years in prison on a charge of making calls online for mass unrest. Shakir was arrested in August 2023, days after he criticized the government's decision to hand four spa centers near Lake Issyk-Kul to Uzbekistan and called President Sadyr Japarov and the State Committee of National Security chief Kamchybek Tashiev to participate in public debates with him.