Tag Archives: media

Uzbekistan unveils its own version of Twitter

FEB. 13 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbek tech developers, possibly under orders from the authorities, unveiled their version of twitter called bamboo.uz. Opponents of the government have described bamboo, which lets users post messages of up to 700 characters, as another attempt to control social media.

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(News report from Issue No. 172, published on Feb. 19 2014)

Activists accuse Kazakh authorities

FEB. 11 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Media groups accused the Kazakh authorities of bias after Police arrested four bloggers who had protested against perceived favouritism shown by Almaty mayor’s Akhmetzhan Yessimov. Three of the bloggers were arrested protesting outside a restaurant where Mr Yessimov was dining with favoured bloggers and another was arrested six days later.

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(News report from Issue No. 171, published on Feb. 12 2014)

Media freedom is ailing in Azerbaijan

DEC. 17 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — In a new report, the media freedom lobby group the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) ranked Azerbaijan as one of the worst 10 countries in the world for locking up reporters and editors the authorities dislike. Media and human rights groups have criticised Azerbaijan throughout the year for its heavy handed treatment of journalists.

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(News report from Issue No. 165, published on Dec. 18 2013)

Uzbekistan imposes travel ban on local journalists

DEC. 4 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Concerned that outside forces would influence its reporters, Uzbek state media banned its journalists from travelling abroad and from communicating with foreigners and diplomats in Uzbekistan. Media freedom and human rights lobby groups regularly criticise Uzbekistan as one of the most repressive regimes in the world.

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(News report from Issue No. 164, published on Dec. 11 2013)

Internet users grow in Uzbekistan

DEC. 10 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The number of people using the internet in Uzbekistan has grown by 18% over the past year to around 7.1m people, media quoted Uzbek President Islam Karimov as saying. As a democratic tool, though, the internet is severely limited in Uzbekistan as the authorities heavily monitor users. The population of Uzbekistan is 30m.

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(News report from Issue No. 164, published on Dec. 11 2013)

Turkmenistan showcases Olympic facilities

DEC. 2 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Often dubbed reclusive and authoritarian, Turkmenistan took the rare step of inviting 80 foreign sports journalists to look around its new sports stadium built to host the 2017 Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games. Turkmenistan’s main objective, however fanciful, is to host the Olympic Games, one day.

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(News report from Issue No. 163, published on Dec. 4 2013)

Jailed Uzbek editor receives award

NOV. 27 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The media lobby group Reporters Without Borders handed its 2013 press freedom award to imprisoned Uzbek journalist Muhammad Bekzhanov. Bekzhanov edited an opposition newspaper until he was imprisoned in 1999 for plotting to a series of terrorist attacks.

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(News report from Issue No. 163, published on Dec. 4 2013)

Newspaper editor jailed in Azerbaijan

NOV. 14 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in Baku sentenced Sardar Alibeili, editor of the independent P.S. Nota newspaper, to four years in jail for attacking another man in the street in July. Human rights groups around the world said the charges were false and accused the authorities of clamping down on free speech.

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(News report from Issue No. 161, published on Nov. 20 2013)

Uzbek government accuses newspaper of terrorism

NOV. 1 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Highlighting just how sensitive the Uzbek authorities are towards the Andijan killings of 2005, prosecutors charged Tashkent-based newspaper Novosti Uzbekistana with promoting terrorism after it published a photograph from the day. Rights groups say hundreds of people died in Andijan after police opened fire on anti-government demonstrators. The authorities say a military operation killed terrorists.

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(News report from Issue No. 159, published on Nov. 6 2013)

BBC airs Central Asia spoof

OCT. 23 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Utter the word Borat to a Kazakh diplomat and he or she may cringe.

It took years to purge the image of Kazakhstan — which wants to be seen as a modern, progressive country — from Borat, the boorish fictional character created by British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen for his 2006 film “Borat: Cultural learnings of America make benefit glorious nation of Kazakhstan”.

Now, though, it appears that the BBC has created another comedy to, potentially at least, poke more fun at the Central Asian republics.

The BBC will broadcast the first episode of its new three-part comedy on Oct. 23 called “Ambassadors”. It’s essentially a sideways, tongue-in-cheek look at the British diplomatic service and the challenges of a foreign posting in a little-known and far-away country.

The twist, for Central Asia at least, is that the fictional little-known and far-away country is called Tazbekistan. No prizes for guessing the mish-mash of republics it is based upon.

And there’s more. The pre-broadcasting blurb goes further. The plot is based around an incoming British ambassador’s attempts to get to grips with Tazbekistan’s idiosyncrasies. This includes being oil-rich and having a woeful human rights record.

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(News report from Issue No. 157, published on Oct. 23 2013)