Business

Tajikistan blocks U.S.-funded news website

Posted November 30, 2012 6:04 am

Associated Press

DUSHANBE, Tajikistan — Tajikistan has blocked a popular U.S.-funded news website, only days after barring access to social networking site Facebook for featuring content allegedly insulting to the Central Asian nation’s president.

State communications service chief, Beg Zukhurov, said Friday that the block on Ozodi, the Tajik language service of Radio Free Europe, came in response to public complaints about the site featuring content detrimental to the national interest.

Media liberties are severely limited in the authoritarian former Soviet republic, and local and international websites are routinely blocked.

Zukhurov drew much online mockery this week when he told media that he wanted the owner of Facebook to travel to Tajikistan to meet with him in person.

Radio Free Europe is funded by the U.S. Congress.

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