The journalism organizations of Tajikistan ask the president for reversing the communications service agency’s decision to pass all Internet traffic through the infrastructure owned by the state-run operator Tojiktelecom.
In a joint statement released on January 30, the Media Council of Tajikistan, the National Association of Independent Media of Tajikistan (Nansmit), “Zhurnalist” (Journalist) Public Association, the Center for Investigative Journalism and the Media Alliance of Tajikistan express concern about “the exclusive right of the Unified Electronic Communications Switching Center to distribute Internet through the national operator Tojiktelecom.”
In this connection, the journalism organizations of Tajikistan ask President Emomali Rahmon for reversing the instruction of the Communications Service under Government of Tajikistan “to release Internet through the one gateway.”
Recall, Tojiktelecom top manager Muzaffar Himmatov told reporters in Dushanbe on January 25 that beginning from this year all Internet traffic will pass through the infrastructure of the national operator Tojiktelecom
All this dates back to a 2016 government decree requiring all internet data to be filtered through a largely hypothetical system known as the Unified Electronic Communications Switching Center, which is known by its Russian abbreviation EKTs.
The Tajik authorities established the Unified Electronic Communications Switching Center last year and required that all Internet and mobile communications traffic be run through the single state-owned telecoms provider, Tojiktelecom. The Center centralizes all telephone and Internet communications with the aim of facilitating surveillance on the grounds of combatting terrorism and extremism. It allows the government to have complete control over domestic communications without any safeguards.
The idea of creating a government-administered information gateway has been circulating since 2005. The stated aim of the recurring initiative has been to prevent “illegal” communications that could undermine national security.
Meanwhile, the journalism organizations also ask the Prosecutor-General Yusuf Rahmon to launch probe into the legitimacy of the communications service agency’s instruction to suspend access to the next-generation network (NGN) accounts NGN accounts.
As it had been reported earlier, the Communications Service on December 18 ordered all telecommunications companies operating in the country, namely Tojiktelecom, TT Mobile, Indigo Tajikistan, Babilon M, Babilon T, Eastera, Intercom, Telecom Technology and Komintel, to suspend access to NGN accounts.
The communications service agency insists the move against the NGN is strictly about security.
Sources inside the state agency responsible for regulating the telephone and Internet sector, however, say that the government’s real motive is to ramp up revenues.
