Kyrgyzstan’s parliament voted on Thursday to ban the Finnish author of an independent report on last year’s ethnic bloodshed from entering the country, saying his findings were a threat to national security.
Deputies declared Kimmo Kiljunen, a former Finnish lawmaker, persona non grata in the state after his report implicated Kyrgyz security forces in the ethnic clashes that killed 470 people last June.
Parliament said in a statement it did not recognize the May 3 report by the Kyrgyz Inquiry Commission, an independent initiative by Nordic countries chaired by Kiljunen and mandated by the government of Kyrgyzstan to investigate the violence against Uzbeks.
The government, which agreed with many of the report’s final recommendations about future action, must now decide whether to implement parliament’s decision.