DUSHANBE, October 14, 2010, Asia-Plus — Publication of the Dushanbe independent weekly
Farazh
is temporarily suspended and its 25 journalists and technical personnel have been asked to take unpaid vacations.
The
Farazh
editor Khurshed Atovullo says they have been forced to temporarily suspend publication of the weekly because they failed to find printing house for publishing the weekly’s edition this week.
The weekly has not appeared since last week.
We will recall that the
Farazh
editorial board told Asia-Plus on October 7 that the privately owned Oila-Print printing house has raised printing prices following rise in paper prices. “We, however, agreed with new prices but Oil-Print refused to print our newspaper all the same,” said the source, “We tried to find alternative printing house but they refused at the very last moment.”
According to Atovullo, the privately owned Intishor printing house has also refused to print
Farazh
pleading technical problems. “We have applied to the state-run printing house, Sharqi Ozod, but they have also refused; they also justified their refusal by technical problems,” said Atovullo, “All this is evidence that it was order from above not to publish our newspaper.”
In the meantime, the Sharqi Ozod director Yoqub Ismoilov says limited technical opportunities and shortage of personnel prevented Sharqi Ozod from printing Farazh. “Our printing equipment is outdated and we do not have enough personnel. That is why we could not print Farazh,” Ismoilov said.
Representatives of the Intishor printing house say they do have an agreement with Farazh and nobody have applied to them.
The
Farazh
editor says they have decided to provide the Internet version of the newspaper to readers until the situation is settled. “We are currently considering this issue with donors,” Khurshed Atovullo added.
We will recall that the
Farazh
weekly has been published since late 2006 and it usually appeared on Wednesdays.
