Forum 18 News Service has discovered while using the
Internet through various Internet service providers that access to a US-based
Islamic radical site, www.muslimuzbekistan.com, is now barred in Uzbekistan.
Describing itself as "the site of the Muslims of Uzbekistan" and
published in four languages, Uzbek, Arabic, Russian and English, the site
contains Muslim and general news. "This website informs about the true
situation of Muslims of this region, on the many thousands of tortures which
they undergo for their steadfast faithfulness to their religion," the
site's owners declare. It includes information for example on "Campaign
launch: Uzbekistan - the west's murderous ally against Islam". Also now
barred is access to a Russian-based news site that often reports on religious
issues in the region, www.centrasia.ru.
The apparently new bar on access to these sites is in addition to the
long-standing bar on the hizb-ut-tahrir.org website, the British-based site of
the radical Islamist party, which is banned in Uzbekistan, which was in place
at the time of Forum 18's April investigation into censorship of the Internet
in Central Asia (see F18News 22 April 2003).
In its earlier investigation, Forum 18 concluded that despite authoritarian
rule, high levels of censorship of the local media and periodic barring of
access to foreign-based political opposition websites, Central Asia's
governments had so far only enacted limited censorship over access to religious
websites based outside the region. Despite Uzbekistan's permanent bar on access
to the London-based Hizb-ut-Tahrir website, the party's Pakistan-related site
is not barred. In several Uzbek Internet cafes, Forum 18 even came across the
notice: "Viewing of religious and pornographic sites is forbidden".
But with low Internet use in Central Asia and a population too poor to be able
to afford access, Central Asia's governments - which to a greater or lesser
extent try to control all religious activity - may believe they do not need to
impose religious censorship on the Internet.
However, wholly unexpectedly Forum 18 gained new insight into the
behind-the-scenes controls. On 13 June, Forum 18's correspondent visited an
Internet cafe in the Uzbek capital Tashkent to print out articles from Forum
18's website. The owner of the Internet cafe asked whether the correspondent
was printing out "banned literature". When Forum 18 asked what he
classified as "banned literature", the owner explained that this
included documents critical of the Uzbek president and also "religious
literature with extremist content".
The talkative Internet cafe owner explained that he himself did not know which
Internet sites were banned, but that he was obliged to check that his customers
did not look at "forbidden" information, in accordance with
instructions from the National Security Service (NSS, the former KGB).
Moreover, if he told the NSS about a customer who was looking at clearly
forbidden websites - for example, the Hizb-ut-Tahrir website - NSS officers
would arrest the customer and fine him 45,000 soms (320 Norwegian kroner, 39
Euros or 46 US dollars).
The Internet cafe owner told Forum 18 that sometimes NSS officers posed as
customers and looked at "untrustworthy" documents. If the Internet
cafe staff did not react to this they could expect serious consequences,
possibly even imprisonment. "If a suspicious customer comes who seems
likely to be a Muslim fundamentalist, then in order to secure my own future I
need not only to see what documents he is looking at, but also to monitor his
emails," the cafe owner complained.
The authorities have also intensified their battle against Internet cafe owners
who illegally use satellite connections to access Chinese and Kazakh providers,
because they are much cheaper than Uzbek providers. The authorities are worried
that websites that are banned in Uzbekistan are accessible on these countries'
providers. However, in practice these attempts at blocking access have only
limited success, as it is possible to open banned websites using other
countries' search engines.