The Almaty-based independent media-rights organization Adil Soz has announced that Kazakh journalist Lukpan Akhmedyarov has won the Peter Mackler Award for Courageous and Ethical Journalism.

The award «honors reporters and editors who have demonstrated a commitment to fairness in the story well told, and a matching commitment to defending the right to publish and air that story in countries who repress independent media.»

The award is given by the Global Media Forum Training Group, a nonprofit organization dedicated to journalism training, and the U.S. branch of the press-freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders.

In April, Akhmedyarov, a correspondent for the «Uralskaya nedelya» weekly in the western city of Oral, was attacked by unknown assailants who stabbed him and shot him with a pneumatic pistol.

He later was found guilty of insulting a local official in West Kazakhstan Oblast and ordered to pay the official 5 million tenges ($33,000).

Akhmedyarov says the attack and lawsuit against him were politically motivated.

http://www.rferl.org/content/kazakh-journalist-wins-press-freedom-award/24670774.html

Reporters Without Borders
International Secretariat
47, rue Vivienne
75002 Paris
France

Beg Zuhurov,
Director of Communication Services under Government of the Republic of Tajikistan

Paris, 6 August 2012

Dear Mr. Zuhurov,

Reporters Without Borders, an international organization that campaigns for freedom of information, and its partner organization the National Association of Independent Media in Tajikistan (NANSMIT), wish to inform you of their profound concern at the announcement by the Tajik government communications service that a group of observers will be formed to monitor online publications and websites for insulting or libellous content.

Last month, you told journalists about your plans to create a “citizens’ organization” in the near future to control the content of websites.

A group of volunteers, composed of highly-qualified IT experts from the main Internet service providers, will be registered with the justice ministry and will be responsible for identifying any libellous content.

We are concerned that such a system of control could lead to the wholesale blocking of online publications and websites. While we agree defamation should be penalised, it should be dealt with by the courts, where defendants can put their case and have the right of appeal.

We note that in recent years, the government’s communications service has regularly targeted the websites of leading independent news organizations, which has led not only to access being denied to content deemed to be defamatory, but also to entire sites being blocked for weeks at a time.

In March this year, local Internet service providers were ordered to block access to several news sites, including Centrasia.ru and the Russian news agency sites Ria Novosti and Lenta.ru.
More recently, the leading independent news website Asia Plus was blocked for the third time in two months after it published articles about a conflict between government forces and rebels in the Gorno-Badakhshan region. When asked for a reason, your service cited technical problems or links to allegedly pornographic or extremist content.

The lack of a clear definition of “insult” or “libel” arouses fears of abuse resulting from varying interpretations. We fear that access to the websites of the leading independent news organizations could be blocked again or closed down for publishing articles on important political figures or for opening public debate on sensitivies issues. This would seriously hamper the right of the Tajik people to access information about matters of public interest.

We should like to remind you of the conclusions of the United Nations special rapporteur on the Right to freedom of opinion and expression, Frank La Rue, who expressed concern in his report in June 2011 at the propensity of some states “to increase their power to monitor Internet users’ activities and content of communication without providing sufficient guarantees against abuse”.

Finally, we are seeking clarfication on a number of important points:

• How will the volunteers monitor the websites?
• Who will decide whether an item is insulting or libellous, and what criteria will be applied?
• Once content is deemd insulting or libellous, what steps will be taken to remove it? How will the authors and host be informed and what action will they face if it is not removed promptly?
• What safeguards will be put into place to prevent abuses for failure to comply with an order to delete content?

In our view, putting all websites under surveillance could be dangerous and counter-productive. Reporters Without Borders urges you to reconsider this plan, which would constitute a breach of freedom of information.

Olivier Basille
Secretary-General, Reporters Without Borders

Nuriddin Karshiboyev,
Chairman, NANSMIT

http://en.rsf.org/

Dushanbe, Tajikistan (02 August 2012) – 18 officers from Main Department of Border Force under the State Committee on National Security of the Republic of Tajikistan, Migration Service under the Government of the Republic of Tajikistan and Drug Combat Department of Interior Ministry of the Republic of Tajikistan participated in Intelligence Gathering, Analysis and Information Sharing National training during 31 July-1 August 2012.

During the training, participants have got general overview of intelligence and crime detection procedures, the European crime intelligence model, as well as special techniques applied in investigating border crimes. The training participants exercised on a fictitious case of intelligence gathering, operational analysis and information exchange.

Two trainers from the European Union presented cases where intelligence gathering, utilization of open sources, analysis of data and information exchange with international partners took place (e.g. illegal Vietnamese migration to the EU and fight against illegal migration through Western Balkans to the EU).

This two-day training session has been arranged by the EU-UNDP Border Management in Central Asia (BOMCA) Programme and the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD).

The overall objectives of BOMCA are to help increase security in the Central Asian region, to contribute toward the facilitation of legitimate trade and transit, and to reduce the illicit movement of goods and people.

The BOMCA Programme is funded by the European Union and implemented by UNDP with ICMPD as an implementing partner.

For additional information, please contact Suhrob Kaharov, Country Manager, BOMCA Programme in Tajikistan, at suhrob.kaharov@undp.org; tel.: (44) 6005527/28

www.deltjk.ec.europa.eu

Access to the leading independent news website Asia-Plus has been blocked for the third time in two months. It was last blocked on 23 July (see below) and had only just been restored when it was blocked again yesterday. Tajikistan’s Internet Service Providers are doing the blocking at the behest of the Communications Agency, which cites “technical reasons.”

The Russian news agency RIA-Novosti’s website has also been blocked, joining YouTube, two other Russian news sites (Lenta.ru and Vesti.ru), two news portals specializing in Central Asia (Fergananews.com and Centrasia.ru) and the local forum Pamir-vesti.ru, all of which have been filtered and blocked in recent days.

Access to the BBC’s website was blocked on 30 July and restored the next day.

“Tajikistan already came close to being added to the list of countries ‘under surveillance’ in our last ‘Enemies of the Internet’ report in March and now the government is clearly doing everything possible to make sure it is added next year, regardless of the negative impact this would have on the country’s image,” Reporters Without Borders said.

“By making increasingly systematic use of cyber-censorship, Tajikistan is falling in line with his Central Asian neighbour Kazakhstan and could eventually catch up with neighbouring Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, which practice even more drastic forms of online censorship.”

The management of Asia-Plus has voiced frustration with the repeated blocking and with the resulting financial losses and damage to its reputation. Its executive director said Asia-Plus would conduct no more negotiations with the head of the Communications Agency, Beg Zukhurov, because the agreements reached in the past had not been respected.

The surge in website blocking coincided with violent clashes between government forces and armed groups in Khorog, the capital of the southern autonomous province of Gorno-Badakhshan, which neighbours Afghanistan. It is very hard to establish the exact situation in Khorog but it seems to have calmed down in the past few days and the army has begun to withdraw.

Dozens of people are thought to have died in the clashes but there is a great deal of variation in the casualty estimates.

25.07.2012 — Access to one of Tajikistan’s main news sites blocked again

Reporters Without Borders deplores the blocking two days ago of access to the news site news.tj, the portal of one of Tajikistan’s biggest independent news organizations Asia Plus, by all Internet service providers on government orders.

“This act of censorship unfortunately is part of the continuing wave of website blockages that we condemned in March,” the press freedom organization said.

“The arbitrary blocking of access to websites by the telecommunications ministry is unacceptable. We urge the government to stop putting pressure on Internet service providers and to restore access to all news sites affected by this mass censorship as soon as possible.”

Access to the Asia Plus website was blocked on the evening of 23 July. The site’s editorial staff were told of the blocking order by its service provider which was responding to a request by Beg Zuhurov, the director of communications, who had given the order to cut access to the site by text message.

Editorial staff say they never received a statement from the government giving the official reasons for the blockage. They made a number of attempts to contact the minister directly without success.

A few days earlier, the site published several articles about a conflict between government forces and rebels in the eastern region of Badakhshan, during which the general in charge of special services, Abdullo Nazarov, was stabbed to death.

It is the second time access to the site has been blocked by the government in the past two months. The previous blockage, which lasted a week, was in response to a comment made by an Internet user. In March this year, access to the sites zvezda.ru, tkjnews.com, maxala.org and centrasia.ru was also blocked.

The government is tightening its control over the Web in the run-up to the presidential election next year.

Last week, the communications ministry informed journalists that a group of IT experts would be formed in the near future to monitor undesirable content. The mission of this “citizens’ organization”, once it is registered with the justice ministry, will be to filter out all comments found to be insulting or defamatory towards those in power.

In this manner, the government hopes forestall the use by Internet users of proxy servers to get around censorship and access the content of blocked sites.

Tajikistan is in 123rd place of 179 countries listed in the 2011-2012 World Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters Without Borders.

http://en.rsf.org/tadjikistan-access-to-one-of-tajikistan-s-main-25-07-2012,43109.html

Dushanbe, Tajikistan, August 1, 2012 – The U.S. Embassy is deeply concerned over continued blockage of several Internet news sites and Youtube.

The United States believes that the right of individuals to express their views freely is universal, whether exercised in a public square or on the Internet. We support freedom of expression for people everywhere and call on other nations to do the same. When ideas are blocked, information deleted, conversations stifled, and people constrained in their choices, the free flow of information and the value of the Internet is diminished for all of us. We have and will continue to raise our concerns with the Government of Tajikistan.

We urge the Government of Tajikistan to respect individual rights to freedom of expression and lift its restrictions on the blocked news sites and Youtube.

http://du107w.dub107.mail.live.com/default.aspx?n=737290612&fid=1&fav=1#n=430339853&fid=1&fav=1&mid=

Experienced journalists worldwide who wish to learn more about democracy can apply for a fellowship.

The Washington-based National Endowment for Democracy (NED) invites journalists to apply to be part of the 2013-2014 Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellows Program. This federally funded program enables democracy activists, practitioners, scholars and journalists to deepen their understanding of democracy and enhance their ability to promote democratic change. Selected applicants will be in residence at the National Endowment for Democracy in either Fall 2013 (October 1, 2013–February 28, 2014) or Spring 2014 (March 1–July 31, 2014).

The program is intended primarily to support practitioners, scholars and journalists from developing and aspiring democracies; but distinguished scholars from established democracies may also apply. Projects may focus on the political, social, economic, legal and cultural aspects of democratic development and may include a range of methodologies and approaches.

All fellows receive a monthly fellowship payment, health insurance, travel assistance at the beginning and end of their fellowship, and research support. Awardees my not receive concurrent funding from the Endowment or its family of institutes during the fellowship period. The program does not fund professional training, fieldwork or students working towards a degree. A working knowledge of English is required.

The application deadline is October 15.

For more information, click here: http://www.ned.org/fellowships/reagan-fascell-democracy-fellows-program

http://www.ned.org/fellowships/reagan-fascell-democracy-fellows-program