DUSHANBE, September 7, Asia-Plus - The Democratic Party of Tajikistan (DPT) has resumed publication of its official newspaper Adolat (Justice).
An issue of “Adolat" was published on September 6 after a two-year suspension.
Rajab Mirzo, the head of the DPT in Dushanbe and acting editor-in-chief of the newspaper, told Asia-Plus that the party’s newspaper will be published in a private printing house in Dushanbe, “though no publishing house in Dushanbe had earlier been willing to print our newspaper,” Mirzo said.
Rajab Mirzo said that the newspaper had been unable to find a printer to publish "Adolat" but now has a verbal agreement to print it on a regular basis. ”We hope that now, Adolat will be published regularly, once a week as it was before,” said Mirzo. “At least there are not any legal obstacles to printing the newspaper.” He added that Adolat’s content follows DPT policy, and therefore will have an opposition flavor.
According to him, the four-page issue came out in a print run of 1,000 copies.
After the DPT was re-registered in December 1999, publication of Adolat resumed in 2000. But in 2004 “Adolat” was closed, as was the independent Tajik weekly Nerui Sukhan (Power of Word).
A report by the National Association of Independent Media of Tajikistan (Nansmit) on freedom of speech in Tajikistan published in February 2005 said that the main reason for suspending the activities of Adolat and Nerui Sukhan was a “divergence between the expectations of the ruling authorities and the editorial staff of the newspapers themselves." "We consider the closure of these newspapers to be an imposition on freedom of speech," Nansmit head Qarshiboyev said.
