Four out of five Tajik newspapers, which publication, allegedly, was supposed to be suspended, are published. On 4 August readers received the private weeklies – Ozodagon, Paykon, Millat and SSSR. According to the Asia Plus news agency, the fifth newspaper, Borgokhi Sukhan has come off the press as well.

Prior to that, some information agencies and Internet outlets said that the publication of the five weeklies is under threat. According to reports in the media, managers of the Mushfiki printing house (where these newspapers are regularly printed) warned about the inability of the next publishing – in view of particular technical reasons. However, unofficial sources said that the printing house received an order “from above” to exclude them from service – allegedly, because of criticism of government officials in their publications.

However, neither of human rights watchdogs, nor media organizations received any complaints from the newspapers concerning the violation of their rights. Some of the foreign media, in particular, the Russian daily Vremya Novostei presented the event “in a political light”.

“Regardless some problems of ethical character and the quality of information in the media, Tajik journalists are tackling very serious social, political and economic problems, very often “trading on forbidden ground” and presenting their civil position”, — said Nuriddin Karshibaev, chairman of NANSMIT. — “Particular officials are not happy about it, but they must be tolerant to criticism in the media”.

It should be noted that none of the five papers mentioned anything about the pressure against them in their publications on 4 August 2010, i.e. after the allegations about the violations of their printing rights.

The NANSMIT monitoring service keeps tracing the situation in the area of freedom of expression.

NANSMIT-TajFEN