On 14 May, during the Fifth Forum of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), at Strategic Research Center in Dushanbe, eight journalists representing local and foreign media were asked to leave the place.

Vafo Niyatbekov, representative of the Strategic Research Center, explained that the journalists can meet participants of the Forum at the end of the session and collect copies of presentations, but they are not allowed to stay in the conference room during the day.

The journalists had to obey in order not to compromise Tajikistan’s image before the foreign participants.

It should be noted that the journalists were attending the second session of the Forum, where participants discussed the issues of cultural and international cooperation, and the information presented there had nothing to do with security data.

NANSMIT monitoring service

DUSHANBE — Tajik President Emomali Rahmon has reinstated the State Committee on Religious Affairs to oversee the country’s religious organizations, RFE/RL’s Tajik Service reports.

Rahmon appointed Abdurahim Kholiqov on May 12 to lead the committee, which will take over duties previously carried out by the Culture Ministry. Kholiqov previously worked as an official in Rahmon’s administration.

Tajik religious-affairs analyst Saidahmad Qalandar told RFE/RL that the control and regulation of religious organizations in the country has become increasingly important, which is why the duty has been removed from the Culture Ministry and given to a specific body.

Saidibrohim Nazar, an activist in the Islamic Renaissance Party, agreed that the committee is important in regulating religious affairs, but he said Kholiqov is not a well-known person in this regard.

The Culture Ministry’s directorate of religious affairs, which previously controlled matters of faith in Tajikistan, had responsibilities including sending people on the annual hajj, the registration of mosques and churches, and regulating the import of religious literature.

http://www.rferl.org/content/Tajik_President_Puts_State_Body_In_Charge_Of_Religious_Affairs/2040655.

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

BISHKEK — Kyrgyzstan’s interim government has issued a decree turning the state-run National Television and Radio Company (KTR) into a public broadcaster to be overseen by an independent board, RFE/RL’s Kyrgyz Service reports.

Omurbek Tekebaev, a deputy chairman of the interim government, told RFE/RL that turning the station into a public television network is important to show people that the interim government wants to be transparent in its activities.

The decree calls for the establishment of a control board for the station that will be made up of members from nongovernmental organizations and independent journalists. The board will select the managers of the station and regulate its programming.

Creating a public television station was among the first promises the interim government made after it assumed power following clashes between antigovernment protesters and security forces in Bishkek that toppled former President Kurmanbek Bakiev on April 7.

Opposition leaders had called on Bakiev to transform state TV into a public broadcaster after he came to power in 2005, but he resisted those requests.

Acting KTR Director Kubat Otorbaev was the chief of the Bishkek bureau of RFE/RL’s Kyrgyz Service before the April 7 events.

http://www.rferl.org/content/Kyrgyz_National_TV_And_Radio_Company_To_Be_Public_TV_Station/2029528.ht

TASHKENT — The trial began today of prominent Uzbek sports journalist Khairulla Khamidov and 14 others charged with activities associated with a banned Islamic group, RFE/RL’s Uzbek Service reports.

The trial is taking place in Gulbakhor, a town near Tashkent. The defendants are charged with «organizing or actively participating in a banned social or religious group» and «production and distribution of literature threatening social order and security.»

Khamidov, 34, is well known in Uzbekistan for his popular Islamic radio program, his work as a soccer commentator, and his poetry. His arrest in January sparked an unusually strong wave of protest in Uzbekistan.

He and the other defendants could be given five-year jail sentences if found guilty.

The trial is being held behind closed doors and all roads from Tashkent to Gulbakhor are being controlled by police, RFE/RL reports.

http://www.rferl.org/content/Prominent_Uzbek_Sports_Journalists_Trial_Opens/2028062.html

The websites of two Kazakh opposition newspapers became inaccessible to Internet users in Kazakhstan today, RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service reports.

«Respublika» chief editor Anastasiya Novikova and «Golos Respubliki» editor Tatyana Trubacheva told journalists in Almaty that their sites are available only through proxy servers. They said people using the state KazakhTeleCom as their Internet service provider are unable to access them.

The editors said the disruption of accessibility to their websites is politically motivated. The two newspapers have since started placing all of their online content on the newspapers’ pages on the social networking website Facebook.

Tamara Kaleeva is the chairwoman of the Almaty-based nongovernmental organization Adil Soz, which monitors the media and journalists rights in Kazakhstan. She said that although KazakhTeleCom is trying to convince rights activists and journalists that the lack of access to the two websites is a technical problem, «it is clear that the whole situation is connected to the content that is published in the newspapers.»

The two publications are known for publishing articles critical of the government.

http://www.rferl.org/content/Websites_Of_Independent_Kazakh_Newspapers_Inaccessible_/2028500.html

The Kazakh Supreme Court today upheld the guilty verdict against jailed prominent Kazakh rights activist Yevgeny Zhovtis, RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service reports.

Zhovtis, the director of the Almaty-based Kazakh Bureau for Human Rights, was sentenced on September 3 to four years in a labor camp for manslaughter after his car struck a pedestrian who later died.

Zhovtis and his lawyers have protested the verdict, saying it is retaliation by Kazakh authorities for his professional activities.

Domestic and international human rights organizations consider the case against Zhovtis to be politically motivated.

http://www.rferl.org/content/Kazakh_Rights_Activists_Guilty_Verdict_Upheld/2025107.html