DUSHANBE, July 4, 2009, Asia-Plus — By health minister’s order all employees of the Ministry of Health (MoH) are forbidden from communicating with the press over death of Khurshed Bobokalonov, the head of the admission department at the Republican Oncology Center, Tajik media watchdog, the National Association of Independent Media of Tajikistan (Nansmit), reported referring to BBC’s reporters in Tajikistan.
According to Nansmit, BBC’s reporters went to the oncology center on July 1 to meet with Khurshed’s colleagues to know more about him as a person and physician. However, the center’s employees said that they had instruction not to communicate with the press and advised them to meet with the center director Zikriyokhojayev.
For his part, Zikriyokhojayev stated that BBC was the gutter press and he would not talk to them about the death of his employee.
Reporters tried to explain him that they just wanted to know what kind of person and employee Bobokalonov was, Nansmit said. They said that they had accreditation and the MoH press knew them well and the information they wanted to get was not the secret one. According to them, Zirkiyokhojayev phoned the MoH press service chairperson Fotima Yoqubova but she said that they allegedly had not applied to her she did not know them.
The center director advised them to apply to the minister in writing and only after his permission he would be able to talk to them, Tajik media watchdog said.
