In Uzbekistan, journalists were forced to quit for criticizing authorities
Journalists of the National Television and Radio Company of Uzbekistan were forced to quit “of their own free will” for criticizing the news on the TV channel “Uzbekistan 24”.
On May 22, the chairman of NTRC, Alisher Khodjaev, accused Bobur Akmalov (editor of Sport TV) and Jamoliddin Bobodjonov (presenter of program “Futbol+” on radio “Oriat Dono”) of violating corporate ethics.
During the broadcast on May 18, journalists spoke about the situation in Sardob and talk sarcastically about the false reports from the scene of the tragedy. Jamoliddin Babadzhanov told the audience that the TV channel “Uzbekistan 24” showed everything in a completely different way. “Everything is fine with us on paper, but actually it’s not so,” the journalist noted. “If you watch the TV channel “Uzbekistan 24”, you will think that the residents of Sardob are happy with the flood, they rejoice at the fact that they were flooded at home.”
Co-presenter of the program, Bobur Akmalov, noted that residents, whose homes were flooded, were not allowed to the President, who spoke with the victims. Most of all A. Khodjaev was outraged by the unflattering characterization of the colleagues’ work. “On TV they showed residents, whose houses were in another place; the flood didn’t even reach them,” the journalist emphasized. “You saw on TV that they were happy to greet the President with applause.” It resembles North Korea. Citizens, whose homes were flooded, cannot be happy.”
The media community immediately responded to the persecution of journalists. Journalist Nikita Makarenko sarcastically remarked that in the blog sphere for the past two days, everyone has been discussing that the state television of Uzbekistan lies. “That’s news, dear gentlemen! Just an exposure of the century,” the journalist said. “It seems more interesting for me that we pay for all this state lie that no one watches. It’s the content of the level of the Telegraph Agency of North Korea, what they produce; and taxpayers will pay for this $40 million in 2020. For comparison, the budget of the State Committee of Ecology is twenty times smaller. This is just nature; hamsters, cats, bushes. Who needs them? Fake chanting of non-existent achievements is quite a different matter!”
The public fund to support and develop national mass media ignored the bullying of journalists. The President’s daughter Saida Mirziyoeva is the deputy chairman of the foundation and has repeatedly assured journalists of her support.
This is not the first case of bullying journalists. On May 8, at the request of former adviser to Islam Karimov and speechwriter of the current President, Khayriddin Sultanov, the leadership of the National News Agency dismissed the journalist Anora Sodikova.
“I didn’t leave work of my own free will, they fired me,” A. Sodikova explained the persecution. “Receiving awards and titles of poets, writers and journalists is also associated with Sultanov. Some poets and writers, close to Sultanov, became popular thanks to this, and truly talented creators were left without well-deserved awards. The situation with the creation of the house-museum of Abdullah Kadiri is similar to the above. If people, like Sultanov, would not be against the creation of the museum, then the house-museum would have been created at the beginning of independence period. Later, a man, who was one of the main culprits that hampered the opening of the museum during all these years, made a speech at the opening ceremony! Hearing Sultanov’s speech, I felt hurt, and I wrote a post on Facebook in tears.”
The journalist refused to delete her post on the social network. A few days after that, Sultanov didn’t object to Anora Sodikova’s returning to work.
