Facebook unblocked in Tajikistan

Three out of four Tajik internet providers and all mobile operators have unblocked access to the popular social network Facebook following a government notice, a RIA Novosti correspondent reported. In early March, Tajik authorities blocked access to several web sites, including Facebook and a number of news portals after they published an article critical to President Emomali Rakhmon. “We received a verbal notice from the government Telecommunications Service [to unblock Facebook],” a representative of one of the country’s internet providers, Telecom Technology, told RIA Novosti on Sunday, adding that a written order was expected to be issued on Monday. Other websites from the blacklist, such as Zvezda.ru, Tjknews.com, Maxala.org and Centrasia.ru, will remain blocked, he added. The Telecommunications Service was unavailable for comment late on Sunday afternoon. On March 1, Zvezda.ru, an analysis website on politics and economics, published an article entitled “Tajikistan ahead of Revolution” that analyzes Rakhmon’s growing autocratic moves which, according to the author, will bring the country to the mass unrest. The website was blocked on March 1, followed by several others, which republished the article, and Facebook, which is used by protesters in Arab countries and in Russia to coordinate public rallies. On Saturday, during a meeting with journalists marking a century since the establishment of the first Tajik newspaper, Rakhmon praised what he described as “free access to the internet” for every Tajik national, adding that “nothing has restrained the rights and freedoms of [Tajik] citizens.” Dunya Miyatovich, the media freedom representative of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), has strongly criticized the Tajik authorities’ move to block the websites. According to the Association of Tajik Internet Providers, the number of Facebook users in Tajikistan doubled to 30,000 last year when compared to 2010. The former Soviet Central Asian republic has a population of 7,6 million.