21/02/2012

IN MAJOR STEP BACKWARDS, ACCESS TO FERGHANA NEWS WEBSITE BLOCKED

"Reporters Without Borders very firmly condemns the semi-state owned company Kyrgyztelecom’s blocking of access to the website of Ferghana (fergananews.com), an independent news agency that covers central Asia. Kyrgyztelecom chairman Askar Baratbayev announced today that his telecommunications company has blocked access to the Ferghana site in response to a formal request from the Kyrgyz state communications agency. The Kyrgyz parliament adopted a resolution to this effect last June (see below), but it had not been carried out until now. “We are shocked,” Reporters Without Borders said. “After months of silence, we had hoped that Kyrgyzstan’s parliamentarians had realized the enormity of their resolution and decided not to apply it. Blocking a news website that is as professional and impartial as Ferghana’s is a major step backwards for a country that aspires to be ’Central Asia’s first parliamentary democracy’. We reiterate our appeal to the entire Kyrgyz political class, on which the democratic hopes of the April 2010 uprising are pinned, to end this absurd and outrageous situation.” In a resolution made public on 16 June 2011, the Kyrgyz parliament called for access to Ferghana to be blocked on the grounds that its coverage of violence in southern Kyrgyzstan in June 2010 had been “subjective” and “provocative.”..."

URL Link: http://en.rsf.org/kirghizistan-kyrgyz-parliament-orders-blocking-17-06-2011,40473.html

Author Organisation: Reporters Without Borders