Uzbekistan: journalists continue to be discredited
Since August 7, an intimate video has been circulated on social networks, in which an unidentified man and woman had sex on the balcony.
The video appeared after the deputy editor-in-chief of the online media “Qalampir.uz” Feruza Nazhmiddinova and the operator filmed a report on August 6 about restaurants and cafes working after 20.00 on the territory of the business center “Tashkent City”. In Uzbekistan, retail outlets were supposed to close at this time due to the pandemic.
The editorial staff of Qalampir.uz denied that Feruza was in the video, and also blamed attempts to discredit the journalist. Her colleagues from other media, deputies and public figures spoke out in her defense. The State Department of Internal Affairs of the capital has begun a pre-investigation check.
The most likely reason for the scandalous video was the reaction of restaurateurs, whose facilities, with the tacit permission of the authorities of Tashkent and local law enforcement officers, violate the decisions of the Republican Special Commission for Combating coronavirus.
Referring to the statement of the mayor of Tashkent, the editorial office notes in its statement that “today we live in a time, when it’s easy to disgrace anyone in six seconds…”. In one of the conversations with journalists, mayor Jakhongir Artykhodjaev threatened to ruin the lives of journalists in six seconds, “turning” them into gays.
These days, the producer and director Shahida Tulyaganova, who left Uzbekistan after the events in 2005, was denied a transit visa by the authorities. She is still seen as an “enemy of the people” for her film about the shootings in Andijan and for many of her works as a military journalist.
“I needed to go on business, and it didn’t concern Uzbekistan at all,” the journalist wrote on her page on a social network. “They didn’t let me come. I wanted it so much. I haven’t been at the airport of Tashkent for 17 years. The most offensive thing is that the authorities of Uzbekistan honorably brought from Syria those who left to fight for ISIS. They are not considered as a threat, but I am apparently so dangerous that even transit cannot be allowed…”.
As the ACCA previously wrote, the attacks on the writing / filming fraternity by trolls are not creative, but have become commonplace. Journalist and blogger Kirill Altman (Alter Ego YouTube channel and Altman News Telegram channel) has been repeatedly harassed on social networks. “The wildest offensive language, hatred and aggression…” This is what he saw in the attacks of the trolls on February 11: insults on the basis of ethnicity, the standard accusation for national patriots of working for the US State Department, and so on.
On February 17, an anonymous user on the social network for gay dating posted a photo of Vlad Avdeev, a blogger and journalist for the online media “Hook.report”, calling him openly gay.
