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Employees Quit After Russian Businessman Buys Kyrgyz TV Company


The director of a television station in southern Kyrgyzstan says he is quitting after the company was bought by a Russian businessman.

OshTV is based in Osh, Kyrgyzstan's second largest city.

The station's director, Ernis Kyiazov, told RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service that he and his team decided to resign following the announcement on April 15 that a Moscow-based businessman, Maksim Krotov, had bought OshTV last month.

OshTV was owned by an ethnic Uzbek from Osh, Khaliljan Khudaiberdiev, until the summer of 2010.

Khudaiberdiev fled the country after Kyrgyz authorities launched investigations against him, saying his TV channel incited ethnic hatred during deadly Kyrgyz-Uzbek clashes in June 2010.

The company then was owned by a group of local businessmen believed to be linked to the controversial former mayor of Osh, Melis Myrzakmatov.

RFE/RL has been declared an "undesirable organization" by the Russian government.

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