The commission demands to submit a certificate of registration to the Ministry of Culture, but the Ministry of Culture has not renewed the registration of "AP" since the beginning of August, because it is waiting for a certificate from the State Committee for National Security…
What happened?
The Central Commission on Elections and Referendums of the Republic of Tajikistan refused accreditation for the upcoming presidential elections to journalists of "Asia-Plus".
On September 25, the editorial staff of Asia-Plus sent a letter to the commission with a request to accredit 9 journalists to cover the presidential elections in the country.
As in the parliamentary elections in March this year, in order to register its journalists, the Asia-Plus editorial staff sent an official letter to the CCER, copies of the journalists' IDs and their passports. However, this time the commission did not accept the documents and requested a certificate of registration of "Asia-Plus" in the Ministry of Culture.
Need a certificate from the State Committee for National Security …
The certificate of registration in the Ministry of Culture of the media is renewed every three years. The last time Asia-Plus updated the document in 2017. This summer, on August 13, the editorial office officially applied to the ministry to renew the registration. All documents for this were submitted on time
All but one – certificates from the State Committee for National Security. What kind of certificate it is and what should be in it – no one knows, since there was no such document in the list before.
The editorial staff of "Asia-Plus" applied to the State Committee for National Security on August 14, 2020, to obtain this certificate, but until today have not received any response. Yesterday, September 28, the editors received a response from the Ministry of Culture, which says that our documents are still "under consideration"…
Returning to the issue of accreditation in the Central Commission for Elections and Referendums of Tajikistan: the department continues to insist on the certificate of registration of "Asia-Plus" in the Ministry of Culture, obviously, not being quite sure that such a media in Tajikistan really exists.
Well, no, no, we are law-abiding citizens, we will cover other topics. It only remains to add that last year the main domain "Asia-Plus" – www.news.tj was hacked and became unavailable by unknown persons, and the site itself has been blocked for the third year in Tajikistan.
At the same time, the country's authorities deny the fact of blocking, explaining this by "technical problems".
