DUSHANBE — Iranian Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi said in Dushanbe today that Iran is ready to try to alleviate tensions between Tajikistan and Uzbekistan at their request, RFE/RL’s Tajik Service reported.

Vahidi, who is on a two-day official visit to Tajikistan, identified Dushanbe’s commitment to completing construction of the Roghun hydroelectic power station as a point of contention between Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.

Uzbek officials have strongly protested the Roghun project as taking too much water away from Uzbekistan, which needs it for agricultural use.

Vahidi said Tajikistan and Uzbekistan should try to improve bilateral relations as regional development is contingent on cooperation between all regional states.

He acknowledged that Tajikistan’s water resources could enable it to generate electricity for export to neighboring countries. He is scheduled to visit the Sangtuda-2 hydroelectric power station that is under construction in southern Tajikistan. Iran is financing that project.

Vahidi met in Dushanbe today with Tajik President Emomali Rahmon and his Tajik counterpart, Colonel General Sherali Khayrulloyev. He described military cooperation between Iran and Tajikistan as satisfactory, adding that unspecified new developments in bilateral relations provide an opportunity to activate unused potential.

Noting persistent instability in Afghanistan, Vahidi advocated three-way cooperation between Iran, Tajikistan, and Afghanistan in combating drug trafficking and terrorism.

Military cooperation between Tajikistan and Iran began in 1997. Iran has offered scholarships for Tajik officers to study at Iranian military
universities and also helped Tajikistan to build a factory that makes military uniforms.

http://www.rferl.org/content/Iran_Offers_To_Mediate_Between_Tajikistan_Uzbekistan/2041410.html

Juma Tolib, chief editor of the Paikon weekly published an article (#18, 05.05.2010) telling a story about Jakhongir Akhmedov, deputy prosecutor in the city of Chkalovsk who illegally took identification card from him.

The reason for conflict was Tolib’s “behavior” – the journalist was walking along the lake, taking pictures, and saw a dead body being pulled out of the water. Having shown his identification card to the police officers, the journalist asked some questions, but instead of getting answers, he was brought to the prosecutor’s office.

After the tedious waiting, the journalists was requested to write an explanation note indicating the purpose of having the photo camera. Tolib told the NANSMIT monitoring service that he managed to cope with the situation, but any young and inexperienced journalist would hardly be able to communicate with the arrogant representatives of the law enforcement agencies.

NANSMIT monitoring service

A Tajik communications official has complained about the removal of mobile phone advertisements from billboards in Dushanbe, RFE/RL’s Tajik Service reports.

Ghaffor Erkaev, the head of the Association of Tajik Mobile Communication Companies, told RFE/RL that although advertisements for tobacco and alcohol are illegal in Tajikistan, there is no ban on mobile phone advertisements.

The removal of the billboards was ordered earlier this month by the office of Dushanbe Mayor Mahmadsaid Ubaidulloev.

Erkaev said all the advertisements were prepaid and that the billboard business is beneficial to mobile phone companies and advertising agencies.

He said the billboard removal had come as a surprise.

Last month in his annual address to parliament, President Emomali Rahmon said Tajikistan, with a population of 7 million, had 6 million mobile phone numbers and 500,000 Internet users.

According to Rahmon, the annual profit of mobile companies is more than 1.4 billion somoni ($320 million), most of which he said goes to foreign companies.

Rahmon also instructed Health Minister Nusratullo Salimov to start a television campaign explaining what Rahmon said was the harm mobile phones cause to people, especially children.

Economist Masud Sobirov said that removing the billboards will not hurt mobile phone providers much because they have a good base for their development and should be able to find other ways to advertise their services.

But some experts say mobile phones have become an important tool for the spread of information and that is why authorities are putting the industry under pressure.

http://www.rferl.org/content/Dushanbe_Campaign_Against_Mobile_Phone_Ads_Draws_Fire/2033337.html

The Media Alliance of Tajikistan (MAT) is planning to run a number of public events on the occasion of the World Press Freedom Day celebrated on 3 May.

According to Zafar Abdullaev, secretary of MAT, the Alliance will conduct a theatrical show and an award ceremony for Tajik journalists who achieved significant results in their profession.

Tajik media professionals will also commemorate their colleagues who were killed in the line of duty during the protracted civil war in the 1990-s.

The Alliance has “established” a special “anti-award” to the government agency, which was the “most closed” for journalists and impeded their professional activities.

The Media Alliance of Tajikistan is the biggest media agency comprising printing, electronic, online outlets and information agencies.

In 1993 the United Nations General Assembly acclaimed the 3 of May the World Press Freedom Day. This day is the annual reminder to the global community that the freedom of speech and the free expression of thoughts are the basic rights stated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

www.avesta.tj

WASHINGTON — The world’s press became less free in 2009, experiencing another year of setbacks. Among the top offenders were Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Belarus, Iran, and Russia.

That’s according to a new report by the Washington-based think tank Freedom House, which annually measures print, broadcast, and Internet freedom in 196 countries.

«This year, we found, globally, another year of downturn,» says Christopher Walker, Freedom House’s director of studies. «This was the eighth successive year where overall declines outweighed gains.»

The Freedom House report assigns a numerical ranking to each country based on legal, political, and economic factors, and considers regulations that restrict media content, editorial pressure by the government, intimidation of journalists, and the structure of media ownership.

The findings show that in 2009 only one in six people lived in a country with a free press. That represents a slight decline worldwide compared to the previous year.

Fueling the trend were efforts by repressive or semi-repressive governments to consolidate existing control over the media — from Africa to Central Asia and beyond.

Iran Repression Worsens

Iran, where the press environment has been designated as «not free» since 1982, received its worst rating in the 30-year history of the survey. It was ranked as the 10th most-repressive country for media in the world in 2009, a reflection of the widespread crackdown on journalists after the disputed reelection of President Mahmud Ahmadinejad.

Dozens of journalists — including editors, reporters, photographers, and bloggers — remain in Iranian jails, some charged with offenses that carry the death penalty. The government has also repeatedly blocked satellite transmissions and restricted Internet and mobile-telephone communication.

In Russia, which is seen as a benchmark for the non-Baltic states of the former Soviet Union, the government maintained its control over nearly all media outlets. The country’s press freedom rating worsened slightly in 2009 and earned a «not free» designation for the seventh straight year. It is now tied with The Gambia in 175th place out of the 196 countries surveyed.

Except for Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia, all of which are designated as «free,» and Ukraine and Georgia, both of which are «partly free,» the nine remaining countries of the former Soviet Union join Russia in the «not free» category. That group includes three of the 10 worst offenders on the Freedom House list: Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Belarus. In these countries, independent media is «either nonexistent or barely able to operate.»

«Apart from individual journalists being under threat,» Walker says, «we also see the infrastructure of news media coming under the control of governments and the dominant powers [in the non-Baltic countries of the former Soviet Union], such that there isn’t any meaningful pluralism on the news and information that’s relevant.

MOST FREE

1. Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden (tie)
5. Denmark
6. Belgium, Luxembourg (tie)
8. Andorra, Switzerland (tie)
10. Liechtenstein

LEAST FREE

187. Iran
188. Equatorial Guinea
189. Belarus, Uzbekistan (tie)
191. Cuba
192. Eritrea, Libya (tie)
194. Burma, Turkmenistan (tie)
196. North Korea
«Today, one could say in many ways that the globalization that we’ve seen over the past decade has really bypassed the former Soviet Union as it relates to news and information of political relevance.»

Internet Battleground

The press landscape in Russia and in neighboring states was also marred last year by governmental failure to apprehend or prosecute journalists’ attackers — a trend Freedom House observed in countries ranging from Mexico to Afghanistan. The report says failure to bring the perpetrators of such attacks to justice both promotes self-censorship among journalists and encourages new attacks.

Another major trend in 2009 was the continuing emergence of the Internet as a battleground between freedom and state control. While the Internet continues to remain freer than traditional media, last year witnessed new attempts by many of the world’s governments to increase restrictions. Along with well-documented cases of Internet censorship in China and Iran, access was also narrowed in countries such as Kazakhstan, which has drafted legislation to extend state control over online content.

Despite the global decline, some countries did experience greater press freedoms in 2009.

There were fewer attacks on journalists in Ukraine. Armenia and Moldova, while still considered «not free,» registered modest gains as a result of reduced censorship. Iraq, while also remaining in the «not free» group, had an improved rating based on a reduction in deadly violence against journalists and «relatively unbiased» media coverage of elections.

The countries of Scandinavia remain at the top of list, with the greatest levels of press freedom in the world.

written by Richard Solash in Washington, with contributions from Nikola Krastev in New York

RAdio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Источник: http://www.rferl.org/content/Press_Freedom_Suffered_More_Setbacks_In_2009_New_Report_Shows/2027614.h