DUSHANBE, March 7, 2012, Asia-Plus — Sozandagoni Vatan, which is the youth organization of the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) of Tajikistan, intends to create alternative to a social networking service and website Facebook.
Sozandagoni Vatan head Adham Mirsaidov told Asia-Plus today the decision to create the website was made yesterday at a meeting of Sozandagoni Vatan activists with students at Tajik Technical University.
“The initiative came from students and researchers from the Center for Innovative Technologies at the Technical University and we supported it,” Mirsaidov stressed.
According to him, the new website must unite Tajik youth living in the country and outside it for the sake of the country’s wellbeing.
The new side will give preference to ideals and national values of the Tajik people and it will serve as platform for exchange of views between Tajik youth,” he said, adding that they have begun work on seeking financial sources for creation of the website.
We will recall that Tajik users’ access to social-network website Facebook and the Russian-language sites centrasia.ru, tjk.news.com, and zvezda.ru has been cut off since March 2 in response to an order from the Communications Service under the Government of Tajikistan.
Tajik authorities have cited “technical problem” for the loss of access to the sites and pledged that the problem would be tackled within the next few days.
The Association of Internet Service Providers of Tajikistan denounced the move as a “direct threat” to Tajik national information security.
U.S.-based Freedom House has also condemned the Tajik government for regularly restricting access to websites critical of the government.
