DUSHANBE, January 29, 2010, Asia-Pus — The Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) has filed suit against the Dushanbe independent weekly,
Millat
(Nation), in the court of Dushanbe’s Firdavsi district.
The Ministry of Agriculture is asking for 1 million somoni in damages after an article entitled “The Ministry of Agriculture Is the Most Corrupt Establishment” published in the weekly on December 10, 2009 defamed it, Narzullo Dadaboyev, a spokesman for a MoA, said, noting that the ministry filed the suit against the newspaper on January 26, 2010.
According to him, the facts mentioned in the article are absolutely unfounded. “We sent an official letter to the newspaper, but instead of replying to the letter they just published it in their next issue,” the spokesman said.
In the meantime, the
Millat
editor-in-chief Zoir Davlat said in an interview with Asia-Plus that they have not yet received any official letter or notice from the court. “We knew about the fact that the Ministry of Agriculture had filed suit against us only from some media,” Davlat said, noting that accusations brought by the ministry against the newspaper are unfounded.
“We did not publish an article, we just published a small report based on data from reliable source,” said the Millat editor, “In case of necessity and the beginning of trial, we are ready to bring reliable information we have and our source of information to court.”
Asked why they did not reply to the MoA letter, he said they had considered it illogical to reply to the letter.
