High fees, spying, and outright blockage — Central Asia’s regimes are not short of ways to control Internet blogs and social networks which have mobilized the recent protests in the Middle East.
Strategies vary across the former Soviet republics of the region, whose regimes are largely authoritarian and where voicing dissent online can result in persecution.
In some countries, even getting online is an insurmountable challenge. Internet access at home became available in Turkmenistan only in 2008, and state provider charges US$7,000 per month for unlimited high-speed access.
That is beyond reach for the vast majority of people in a country where monthly per capita GDP is just over US$600. Even at that price, only the so-called “Turkmenet” is available: Access to YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and popular blogging platforms like LiveJournal are blocked.
Internet cafes have existed in the isolated energy-rich state since 2007, but customers have to show their passports to use them.
Media in Turkmenistan or Uzbekistan have not highlighted the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia, where mobilization was largely possible due to the Internet.
US Assistant Secretary Robert Blake issued a soft warning last week during a visit to the region, marking the “importance of free media and other such mechanisms” in letting young people express themselves.
“It’s important for leaders in relatively closed societies to heed the lessons, to listen to the lessons of what’s happened in Tunisia and in Egypt,” he said in Ashgabat.
That message has been ignored in Uzbekistan, ruled for more than two decades by Uzbek President Islam Karimov, where tight control over the Internet was imposed after regime changes in Ukraine and Georgia in mid-2000s.
Any Internet user can be disconnected the moment his activities are deemed dangerous for the state. But disconnection is not the worst outcome for independent thinkers in Central Asia’s most populous country.
A moderator of popular forum arbuz.com, which was created abroad and is critical of the regime, recently urged visitors to be careful after “some forum participants got arrested by the security forces in Uzbekistan for participating in this forum.”
“You should NEVER under ANY circumstances attempt to open the forum when you are in Uzbekistan ... I want you guys all to be safe and take my message very seriously,” the message stated.
Warning signs at Internet cafes in the country openly say that “Visiting Web sites that contain anti-constitutional, religious extremist and pornographic contents are prohibited,” and independent news Web sites are blocked.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in