Kyrgyzstan Native Makes Supreme Court Debut in Free Speech Case

Anya Bidwell knows what it feels like to fear the government.

Before moving to the US for college in 2004, the Institute for Justice attorney worked for the CNN Student Bureau in Kyrgyzstan and worried, as a budding journalist, that she’d at some point anger officials in the former Soviet republic and be thrown in jail for her reporting.

That’s why, she said, the retaliatory arrest case she’s arguing on behalf of a former Texas city councilwoman in her debut before the US Supreme Court on Wednesday feels so personal.

“I’m very familiar with government overreach and also that kind ...