In a Major Reopening to the World, Uzbekistan Unblocks Major Online News Portals

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 11 – In what must be the  most important reopening to the world since the passing of Islam Karimov, the Uzbek government announced yesterday that it was ending its efforts to bloc a large number of foreign and domestic online news portals, a remarkable step especially at a time when others including Russia are seeking to block more of them.

            Komil  Allamzhonov, the director of Uzbekistan’s Presidential Agency for Information and Mass Communications, made the announcement via his Facebook page (facebook.com/k.allamjonov/photos/a.205232260233350/451863665570207/?type=3&__tn__=-R; cf.  fergana.agency/news/107256/).

            From now on, he said, the following sites, long blocked by that Central Asian country will be fully accessible: the Voice of America, Amerika ovozi, BBC Uzbek, Deutsche Welle, Amnesty International, Human ights Watch, Reporters sans Frontieres, Eurasianet.org, AsiaTerra, Fergana, Centrel, Uzmetronom, and other foreign news sites.

            “I particularly want to note,” Allamzhonov wrrote, “that the Chief of State constantly stresses the need to secure freedom of speech and information in the republic. In correspondence with this, the Agency continues its activities directed at strengthening the status of journalists, the development of mass media … and the improvement of the legal basis” for all this.

            “At the same time, he added, “we want to call on foreign media outlets and dthe journalistic community as a whole to maintain the principles of professional journalistic ethnics and not use unconfirmed information and not to allow the dissemination of baseless rumors and inventions.”

            The Fergana news agency has tested the Agency head’s words and reports that its site is fully accessible in Uzbekistan, for which its direction expressed his thanks.  “It is a very good thing,” Daniil Kislov says, “that today are changing not only economic policy and social life but also the attitude toward the means of mass information.”

            “The government should recognize that the media are not the enemies of state and society On the contrary, the mass media must become the main driver of reform in Uzbekistan,” the Fergana news agency head said.

            Relations between the international media and Tashkent have been troubled since the Andizhan events of May 2005. Their coverage of the government’s suppression of that protest led Tashkent to block many sites.  More recently, after the passing of Karimov, Tashkent has said it is blocking only pornographic and terrorist sites.

            Last week, the Uzbekistan justice ministry published a list of sites which have been identified by a court as extremist (fergana.agency/news/107225/). They apparently will continue to be blocked. Supporters of media freedom hope, however, that no sites which have been unblocked will be put on that list at some point in the future.