In Uzbekistan, Ministry of Internal Affairs will hire patriotic bloggers
Until May 1, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Uzbekistan intends to create a group of “patriotic bloggers” from among members of the Youth Union, students of the University of Information Technology of Tashkent and young volunteers.
This is stated in the draft presidential decree “On measures to further improve the system of crime prevention among minors and youth”. The virtual group will monitor negative ideas with comments on social networks and work on “creating an atmosphere of intolerance” for such ideas.
The discussion of the document provoked a sharply negative reaction on social networks due to direct analogies with the Russian army of trolls. The chairman of the central council of the Youth Union, Alisher Sadullaev, immediately dissociated himself from such a proposal by law enforcement agencies. He stated that the youth organization had nothing to do with the development of the project and even asked to delete this paragraph.
According to an ACCA expert, the opinion of the head of the youth organization doesn’t mean anything.
“He and his charges will be forced to submit to the will of the power department,” the expert noted. “The bill was prepared a long time ago and became part of the efforts of the Ministry of Internal Affairs to expand its influence on domestic political processes in the country.”
The project provides for the creation of a Development Fund of system for working with minors and youth under the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which will, in particular, be funded from 10% of the proceeds of the Development Fund for the Youth Union.
One of the objectives of the law will be “the implementation of systematic measures aimed at creating a culture of respect for the law, intolerance of offenses and the elimination of legal nihilism among students”. The press service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs calmly reacted to the criticism of the bill, posting a laconic statement on the network, summarizing that “the Ministry of Internal Affairs is always open for a constructive dialogue”.
The ACCA expert is sure that even if there are any adjustments, they certainly will not change the essence of the law. “In fact, a division of Uzbek trolls has already been created,” the expert emphasized. “An extensive company of bullying bloggers on a social network showed that Uzbekistan has a mature community of patriotically aiming IT volunteers.”
Initially, the National Security Service (now the State Security Service) was engaged in the formation of the bot farm. After the Andijan execution of 2005, comments began to appear under publications defending Karimov and his policies.
In 2011, anonymous pro-government comments appeared in defense of the daughter of the President Islam Karimov, Lola Karimova-Tillaeva. Then she lost the libel case in Paris, where she was called the daughter of a dictator. Often the National Security Service attracted journalists from state-owned media to expose the enemies of the people from among independent journalists.
Under the President Mirziyoev, in 2018, the Youth Union of Uzbekistan “took care of trolls and bots”. In May, it held a seminar for 150 young reporters. Journalists managed to find out that a group of active members of the Youth Union of Uzbekistan were trolling. By order of the leadership of the Youth Union, each of them opened 4-5 Facebook accounts to organize trolling attacks against users who express negative opinions about the organization.
In the context of the fight against the coronavirus pandemic, the Ministry of Internal Affairs proposes a second project in April, aimed to strengthen the repressive mechanism of suppressing civic activity.
Recall that the draft law “On public safety” and its concept were published on the government portal. The bill obliges citizens upon request to allow representatives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, State Security Service, the Prosecutor’s office, the Ministry of Emergencies, the Ministry of Justice and the National Guard to their homes.
