Another announcement by the Agency for Information and Mass Communications (AIMC) under the Presidential Administration reinforced the efforts of the authorities to control the distribution of content online.
According to the online media Daryo.uz, in turn referring to the speech of the director of the Agency Asadjon Khojaev at the 26th plenary session of the Senate, Uzbekistan should establish administrative responsibility for the media and bloggers for publishing materials that promote violence, cruelty, religious intolerance, immorality and pornography.
He stated violations ‘which have caused spiritual, educational and religious prejudice in our youth. For example, more than 18,000 such cases were identified between 2021 and 2022’. On 9500 sites in Uz domain, information was found that inclines to illegal actions, gambling, drug use, alcohol and tobacco products. Measures are being taken to them jointly with the Internet regulator Uzkomnazorat and the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
“Access to unwanted information is easily bypassed when using a VPN,” an ACCA expert comments on AIMC’s actions. “So the sterilization of content generated from abroad is simply impossible. Those, who are easy to crush, fall in the law enforcement squeezer.”
Earlier, ACCA wrote about how on June 21, 2021, the head and one of the founders of Kun.uz, Makhsudjon Askarov, was fined $1,156 by the Chilanzar District Court for Criminal Cases in Tashkent for religious materials posted on the site. For dubious reasons, the Ministry of Internal Affairs didn’t like seven articles before and during Ramadan. In particular, a quote about the New Zealand police, which presented uniforms stylized as a hijab, aroused suspicion.
