Internet Enemies 2010 - Uzbekistan

Domain name: .uz
Population: 26,606,007
Internet users: 7,740,000
Average price of an hour's connection in a cybercafé: around 0.19 US$
Average monthly salary: around 68 US$
Number of imprisoned netizens: 0

In this country deprived of independent media outlets, the authorities impose a very strict Internet censorship, while refusing to admit it publicly. Website filtering, sanctions and intimidations are used against potential critics of the regime. Netizens have learned to practice self-censorship.

Massive censorship of politically oriented content

The government intensified its crackdown on the Internet, particularly after the 2005 Andijan massacre, in order to impose only its version of the facts on the Uzbekistan population. At that time, access to nearly all Internet websites had been blocked. Authorities are now attempting to prevent the opposition based both inside and outside of Uzbekistan from connecting with the Uzbek society via the Internet and the new media, which are becoming increasingly popular in the country. The number of Internet users rose from 2.4 to 7.74 million from 2008 to 2009, according to the authorities.

The lengthy list of "sensitive" subjects includes corruption of government officials, criticism of the regime, and the deplorable status of human rights. Among the blocked sites are those of the online news agency www.Ferghana.ru, and Nezavisimaya Gazeta (www.ng.ru). The regional news website www.CentrAsia.ru is partially blocked, but most of its pages can be viewed. If surfers attempt to gain access to prohibited articles, they are redirected to the home page. The website of the Central Asian News Service, www.ca-news.org, is also partially blocked. The BBC's Uzbek-language broadcasts are constantly blocked, while the Russian version is only periodically blocked. Social networks such as LiveJournal, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, Flickr and Uzbekistan's most popular blog platform, www.Kloop.kg, are sporadically inaccessible. The websites of Russian TV networks Russia 1 and Vesti 24 were blocked after they broadcast news that Uzbek photographer Oumida Akhmedova, accused of "insulting" and "slandering" the Uzbek people, had been granted an amnesty. The artist's works had addressed poverty and women's rights.

Most Internet service providers gain World Wide Web access through the National Information Transmission Network (UzPAK) operator. Filtering is enforced at this level. But one of the state-owned service providers, Tashkent City Telephone Network (www.tshtt.uz) independently blocks websites not rendered inaccessible by UzPAK. Every service provider must obtain a license from the Ministry of Communications and Information.

The Internet version that the population can access once the "harmful" websites are made unavailable is called "UzNet."

According to the online news agency www.Ferghana.ru, the regime launched a campaign through the state-controlled media to justify Internet censorship to the general public. The deputy editor-in-chief of Halk Suzi, one of the country's three biggest dailies, allegedly supported the muzzling of websites relaying "unacceptable criticism," and suggested setting up a system equivalent to an "Electronic Great Wall of China."

A liberticidal legislative apparatus that scoffs at the Constitution

While the Constitution guarantees free access to information, this principle is ridiculed on a daily basis, mainly because it is rendered ineffective by the adoption of many other pieces of legislation.

The 2002 Law on the Principles and Guarantees of Freedom of Information authorizes the government to use restrictions when it deems it necessary to protect anyone against "the psychological impact of negative information." Decree no. 216 of 2004 prohibits ISPs and operators from disseminating certain types of information. The national operator UzbekTelecom broadly interprets targeted content. The 2007 Media Law, which also applies to online media, renders editors and journalists liable for the "objectivity" of their publications.

The Uzbek National Security Service (NSS) is responsible for Internet surveillance and for ensuring that these rules are being enforced by ISPs and cybercafés.

Netizens under surveillance

The one thousand cybercafés that operate in the country are unevenly monitored. The use of spyware is widespread. Tests carried out by Reporters Without Borders have shown that certain café managers resisted installing anti-spyware software on one of their computers, while in other cybercafés, this tampering went almost unnoticed. Various censorship circumvention tools may have been used in certain cafés, but not in others. Several OpenNet Initiative researchers were therefore questioned in 2007, while they were testing website filtering systems.

Emails are also under surveillance, as are chat rooms, particularly those of ICQ and Mail.ru Agent. Several people are thought to have been arrested in January 2010 for their alleged membership in extremist religious organizations, after being spotted from their conversations on Mail.ru Agent.

Harassments and intimidations

Netizens wishing to express themselves freely online are risking a great deal. One high-profile case is that of online journalist Djamshid Karimov, the President's nephew, widely known for having denounced corruption among the Jizzak region's authorities, and who was forcibly confined in a psychiatric hospital in 2006. The rare independent journalists who have remained in the country are constantly harassed by authorities and summoned to the police station. Ten of them are behind bars. Among them is Solijon Abdurakhmanov, who was sentenced in 2008 to serve a ten-year prison sentence for "drug possession with the intent to sell," in a totally fabricated case.

Hypocritical authorities encouraged by a non-reactive international community

Despite this incriminating record, Uzbek authorities deny the scope of the censorship, which they justify by claiming it is necessary to protect national security, and they are even trying to make it seem reasonable to the international community. The government is displaying boundless hypocrisy in attempting to make people believe that the country is opening up to some degree. In a February 2010 speech, President Islam Karimov blamed the media for not being aggressive enough. He stated: "It is necessary to create additional conditions for better coverage of both foreign and domestic policy by [the] mass media". His sole aim is to please investors. Karimov has no intention of stopping the censorship.

At any rate, the country's strategy seems to be working. Attracted by Uzbekistan's energy resources, the European Union has agreed to take a reconciliatory approach with Uzbekistan and voted in 2008, and again in 2009, to lift the sanctions that had been imposed following the Andijan massacre.