DUSHANBE, June 8, 2015, Asia-Plus – Asia-Plus website is available again on the Internet in Tajikistan, along with the Facebook social network, the YouTube video-sharing website and Russian social networks Odnoklassniki and Vkontakte.
The websites have been available since the weekends. Meanwhile, Radio Liberty’s Tajik- and Russian-language websites still remain inaccessible in Tajikistan.
Asia-Plus’ website had been blocked since May 28. Vavilon, TajikTelecom, Megafon and a number of other Internet providers blocked access to Asia-Plus’ website late on May 28.
The chairman of Tajikistan”s Association of Internet Service Providers (ISPs), Asomuddin Atoyev, has supposed that access to the sites was being blocked by some ISPs following an oral order from the state communications service agency.
According to him, reports about the Tajik OMON (special police unit) commander who joined Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants in Syria could be behind the order.
Meanwhile, officials at the state communications service agency said they have nothing to do with the Internet blockage.
We will recall that in a video posted on YouTube on May 27, the Tajik OMON commander Gulmurod Halimov said he had joined the ISIL group in protest at official restrictions on religious observance in Tajikistan.
The United States has expressed concerns over inaccessibility of a number of websites in Tajikistan.
In its statement released on June 4, the U.S. Embassy in Dushanbe urged the Tajik government “to lift any restrictions” on RFE/RL”s Tajik- and Russian-language websites, Facebook, Asia-Plus and other Internet news and social-media sites.
“The right of individuals to express their views freely is universal, whether exercised in a public square or on the Internet,” it added.
