For those who didn’t see it in the comments, Ferghana.ru is reporting that the Uzbek Foreign Ministry has denied accreditation to Radio Liberty’s Tashkent bureau.
In the official letter to Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty president Geoffrey Trimble, the ministry said it had to take this decision because of “non-observance of rules regulating professional activity of correspondents of foreign media on the territory of the Republic of Uzbekistan”.
The unforgivable crime in question is the use of Uzbek citizens as stringers–”so-called freelance correspondents” in the words of the ministry–in Radio Liberty’s reporting. Such behavior is, according to the ministry, “a serious violation of laws of Uzbekistan.”
Back when I was a volunteer, we often wondered how one could determine whether or not something was illegal in Uzbekistan. We decided that if one had to ask or even slightly wonder about an action, it was probably illegal under the right circumstances.* This appears to be getting truer every day.
* “under the right circumstances” = “at the whim of officials”
This post was written by...
Nathan Hamm – author of 2974 posts on Registan.net.
Nathan is the Founding Editor and Publisher of Registan.net, which he launched in 2003. He was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Uzbekistan 2000-2001 and received his MA in Central Asian Studies from the University of Washington in 2007. Since 2007, he has worked full-time as an analyst, consulting with private and government clients on Central Asian affairs, specializing in how socio-cultural and political factors shape risks and opportunities and how organizations can adjust their strategic and operational plans to account for these variables. Nathan is currently seeking research, analysis, and consulting opportunities. He can be contacted via Twitter or email.
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Calling out a radio transfer…
damnit.