DUSHANBE, February 22, 2012, Asia-Plus — The worldwide survey b the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) entitled “Attacks on the Press in 2011” notes that the Tajik authorities use extremism, defamation charges to retaliate against critical reporters.
The survey notes an unprecedented number of lawsuits seeking disproportionate damages was reported last year and one newspaper was forced to shut.
Investigative journalists were targeted with retaliatory arrests and debilitating lawsuits, marking a decline in press freedom conditions, the survey says.
“Mahmadyusuf Ismoilov, a reporter for the independent weekly
Nouri Zindagi
, was imprisoned for nearly a year on defamation charges related to stories on government corruption in the northern Sughd province. BBC correspondent Urunboy Umsonov spent a month in jail after security agents arrested him on extremism charges stemming from his reports on the banned Islamist group Hizb-ut-Tahrir. The independent newspaper
Asia-Plus
and reporter Ramziya Mirzobekova faced a civil lawsuit from a senior Interior Ministry official who accused them of spreading false information in a story about a man who died in government custody, press reports said. And a Dushanbe-based independent newspaper,
Paykon
, was forced to close after a state agency won a sizable judgment in a defamation case related to a letter alleging corruption.”
The survey also notes that President Emomali Rahmon in September 2011 ended the requirement that senior officials convene quarterly press conferences, diminishing already-limited access to leaders.
