Comments on: Uzbekistan Defines Blogs as Mass Media

By: Nathan

Nathan — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 23:37:48 +0000

I think it means something different to lawmakers in different states, and that what it means is extremely situational. In common law countries, this will, I imagine, eventually get sorted out as case law develops. And in continental Europe, precise and elaborate laws will surely be written if they have not been already. In the meantime though, I imagine that most law enforcement bodies across the world will interpret statutes quite restrictively.

I think you’re quite right about registration in Uzbekistan. When I lived there, we liked to joke that because the legal code is so vague, all that is not specifically allowed by law must be assumed to be illegal.

By: Nick

Nick — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 23:23:31 +0000

I fear there may be international precedent in that British internet businessman have been arrested by US authorities for breaking gambling laws even though their websites are hosted outside the USA. I bring this up not to pick on the US, rather to illustrate that the trans-national nature of the internet doesn't seem to mean much in the eyes of lawmakers. Moreover, this latest action by the Uzbek government fits into a pattern of laws requiring compulsory registration for e.g. religious groups, political parties etc/ It's almost as if an organisation isn't registered, then it must be illegal. I foresee a modern rewriting of Mullah Nasruddin stories in which the Mullah is prosecuted for running, I dunno, an illegal political party but argues that he isn't breaking any laws because if he was running a political party, it would be registered, right? Or am I just being silly?

By: Nathan

Nathan — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 21:12:14 +0000

I don’t know what the law says, but I imagine that it is territorial and within regards to the .uz domain. They mention this applying to foreign media, so I imagine the case could be made that it applies to Registan.net if an author is writing from Uzbekistan despite the fact that the site is physically located in Florida and the owner/editor lives in Seattle. Now whether or not that’s how it really works or will be applied I do not know. It is much easier to just block the foreign sites, but it could probably be used to prosecute Uzbek nationals writing for foreign websites.

By: Laurence

Laurence — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 20:27:24 +0000

I guess that’s what keeps services like Anonymizer in business…

By: Nick

Nick — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 19:11:49 +0000

Well, it could be argued that just because a blog is written in Uzbek doesn't mean it is Uzbek e.g. a blog written by an ethnic Uzbek in Afghanistan or Xinjiang. I mean, is Uzbekistan Neweurasia an Uzbek blog? However, I think that the issue is not blogs per se, but the people behind them i.e. bloggers. It's another way for the government to keep tabs on potential dissenters and threaten them with the law.

By: Laurence

Laurence — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 18:05:30 +0000

If an Uzbek blog is hosted in another country, for example Russia or the USA, would the new law cover that? I wonder about issues of extraterritoriality…