Tajik Internet providers ask for unblocking YouTube
DUSHANBE. Aug 1 (Interfax) - YouTube, the popular video hosting website, to which Tajik Internet users have had no access for several months, is not just for entertainment but also an educational resource and a way of promoting business units in any country around the world, the Association of Tajik Internet Providers wrote in a letter to the Governmental Communications Service on Thursday.
"Every effort should be exerted to transform Tajikistan into a developed transit communication country and the role of transnational social networks such as YouTube is crucial for the attainment of these goals," reads the letter of the Association, which unites practically all of the national providers of Internet services.
"Resources of this kind are predominantly entertaining but they also have a huge educational, economic and political potential. Our country should take advantage of this resource and it could also present national products in order to foster the goals and interests of the state on the international arena," the letter stressed.
"Domestic accessibility [of Internet resources] is the main rule for using their potential to our advantage," they said.
Tajikistan blocked domestic access to YouTube in May 2013. The Communications Service, which has the right to sanction the blocking of particular Internet resources, has repeatedly blocked YouTube, such social networks as Facebook and a number of news websites without giving its reasons.
The program of the K+ Central Asian opposition channel headed by Tajik opposition journalist Dodojon Atovulloyev, who resides outside of Tajikistan, was posted on YouTube in May. The channel also aired a video of the wedding of Tajik President Emomali Rahmon's son, Rustam, that took place four years ago. Atovulloyev criticized the wedding for being too pompous.
Tajik Internet users actively share ways of evading the restrictions and blocked websites immediately become the most popular and sought out in the republic.
