Uzbekistan: the media received 90 warnings from the country’s chief censor

90 submissions and warnings to the representatives of the Uzbek media sphere were issued by the Agency for Information and Mass Communications under the Presidential Administration.

What exactly caused the objection of the Agency for Information and Mass Communications under the Presidential Administration was not reported. The official statement says that the claims are related to the “moratorium on checking business entities and bringing them to justice in a pandemic situation, as well as some difficulties in obtaining and verifying information in cases, where certain media disseminate fake and unverified information or information that contradicts the law. So the Agency confined itself to verbal warnings”.

The department noted that “as a result of sending warnings, not a single media representative was brought to administrative, financial or criminal liability”.

In the opinion of the administration of the Agency for Information and Mass Communications, it “within its competence, pays serious attention to the protection of journalists whose rights have been violated”. At the same time, as an example, it is cited the sending of four appeals to various state structures “on the immediate termination of blocking journalistic activities, bringing the perpetrators to justice and preventing repeated cases”.

The Agency for Information and Mass Communications chose not to mention the attacks on the writing community. Since the beginning of the year, based on its monitoring, the Foundation “Justice for journalists” (UK) has recorded 39 attacks using legal and/or economic mechanisms; 40 journalists and bloggers have been threatened online, and nine people have experienced threats to their lives and health.