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From April 1 Internet in Kazakhstan will be cheaperFebruary 26, 2006 Kazakhstan Today (in TsentrAziya) http://centrasia.org/newsA.php4?st=1140901260 In 2006, it is planned that tariffs for internet services will be lowered by 50 percent. Deputy representative of AIS Rizat Nurshabekov announced this news at gatahering at the Agency of Information and communications, reproted a correspondent of the press agency. He further clarified that the lowering of the tariff by 25 percent is expected in the first half of this year and by another 25 percent as of October 1. Besides that "it is planned to increase the number of Internet users to 6 people out of 100 residents by the end of 2006," R. Nurshabek added. In 2008, users of mobile connections in Kazakhstan is expected to grow to 7.5 million people. R. Nurshabek also mentioned that an decrease in prices on mobile connection is expected with the increase in the quantity of users. It is planned that the lowering of tariffs will be carried out "for the cost alignment and lowering of rates, and also for the cost of connecting to an operatr connection, passing through Kazakhtelekom.

From an IWPR bulletin: Plans to centralise mobile communications worry private phone operators. By Artyom Fradchuk in Dushanbe A proposal to place all cellular and internet traffic under the control of Tajikistan’s communications ministry has the telecoms industry up in arms. In February, the ministry presented parliament’s anti-monopolies committee with a plan to set up a single government-controlled communications centre to which all existing internet providers and cellular phone operators must be connected. The ministry says the centre will improve the quality of mobile and internet connections. But telecoms providers are not convinced, and insist the centre will allow the government to monitor phone calls at the same time as charging unnecessary fees to the private operators. “The state wants to control all the traffic and fill the treasury at the expense of private entrepreneurs,” the head of one internet company told IWPR on the condition of anonymity. Twelve telecoms companies have written to the government asking for the plan to be scrapped. They have also written to the state agency for anti-monopoly policy and, whose head, Rahmonali Amirov, appears to share their view that it would be bad for business. In a written reply, he told the providers, “This project goes against the programme of reforms carried out in recent years in the industry, especially the demonopolisation of electronic communications and the development of free competition.” Tajikistan has - for the size of its economy - what amounts to a booming telecoms industry, with around 10 cellular operators and 20 internet providers operating around the country and two to three more appearing each year. The strength of the sector and the presence of foreign investors have been boosted by the kind of liberal regulation that Amirov referred to. The general director of the Babylon-M mobile phone company, Bekzod Faizullaev, warns that consumers will suffer if his group is forced to route all calls through the centre. “Connecting to the central communications centre will force us to abandon special deals like free minutes and free outgoing calls,” he said. Ravshan Valamat-Zade, manager of the internet firm Intercom, believes that the scheme will give the communications ministry a de facto monopoly over telecoms services. “The price of communications services will increase,” he said. “Providers will depend on one company which provides equipment, and the quality of communications will worsen.” Maruf Muhammedov, director of the mobile phone group Istera, added, “We don’t understand why this communications centre is needed. The only positive thing about this decision is that it may provide equal access to communications channels, but all this needs to be worked on and thought over.” Not surprisingly, Communications Minister Said Zuvaidov takes a rather different view. He insists that the centre would be good for the telecoms industry and denies that the government simply wants to eavesdrop on its citizens’ private communications. He also rejected the operators’ claims that using the centre would force them to raise prices, saying they would not need to install new equipment or incur any additional expenses to do so. “The providers always say that the consumer will lose out. It’s their favourite refrain,” said Zuvaidov in an article published in the weekly Asia-Plus. “All businessmen are worried only about their own profits. We will not interfere in their contracts or in their fees. The installation of the single communications centre should not mean a rise in the fees charged by operators and providers, or a rejection by clients.” Zuvaidov said the biggest benefit would be an improvement in the quality of phone services, “With the help of the centre we will be able to track which providers have problems with equipment and [point them out]. Virtually every subscriber with a cellular or fixed connection encounters problems when calling. Privileges such as free calls lead to network overload, resulting in a deterioration in the quality of communications.” The minister believes the real reason why telecoms groups are so vehemently opposed to central coordination is that it would stop them running pirate internet operations for which they pay no license fee or taxes. Khurshed Rajabmahmadov, deputy director of the telecoms regulatory agency within the communications ministry, said Tajikistan is the third worst offender in the former Soviet Union for unlicensed phone calls, “The traffic is not registered anywhere, and there is an illegal flow of money, allowing private operators to set their prices much lower than the state Tajiktelekom can do, even though the quality of our communications is much higher.” But Rajabmahmadov also acknowledged that there was a security dimension to the plan to centralise telecoms. “Control over all the number and direction of calls - including those made from cellphones - may be needed not only by us, but by the national security committee and the interior ministry. And of course, at their request we will provide this information,” he said. Parliamentary deputy Yusuf Ahmedov worries that the ministry’s plan will worsen Tajikistan’s reputation abroad, since as far as he knows only tightly-controlled Belarus has a centralised communications network. Even in Uzbekistan, he said, attempts to create such a centre foundered. “Local operators, together with the international community, were able to convince the [Uzbek] government that this would be a disastrous step,” he said. In the case of Tajikistan, state control will only lead to abuses, Ahmedov believes. “The market, and that alone, should be the determining factor in the high-tech sector. The creation of a state-managed centre will lead to misuse and complete control by the particular group whose hands it is in,” he said, adding that there was also a risk that the centre would be privatised in future, creating one owner with a total monopoly in the sector. Artyom Fradchuk is an IWPR contributor in Dushanbe.

From the irex.org Web site: On February 16, Abdilboki Tolipov, the director of the Civil Society Support Center (CSSC) in Nookat, Kyrgyzstan, announced the official opening of a new Independent Internet Center (IIC) in the village of Aravan. CSSC already hosts an IATP access site, but Tolipov and his staff used the organization’s own funds to open an additional center in Aravan to address a pressing need for access to information in the isolated village, 55 kilometers from Nookat and 38 kilometers from the Uzbekistan border. Aravan has an undeveloped infrastructure, and agriculture is the only source of income for the population. National newspapers arrive in the town two weeks after publication, and the only broadcast news available is television broadcasts in Uzbek from Uzbekistan state television. Independent Internet Centers (IIC) operate independently and provide at least 20 hours of free Internet access and training each month, but charge modest fees for other services to sustain the high costs of Internet, labor, and maintenance. The costs for opening of the new access site in Aravan were over $1,400 in total, which were covered by the CSSC’s savings from previous grants and revenue from paid services. In February, Aravan center administrator Dinara Matkasymova convinced Dostuk, a local newspaper, to publish a free advertisement of the IIC’s resources and services. From February 20 to 25, Matkasymova conducted the first paid courses in computer and Internet basics for ten local residents, each of whom paid 30 soms (80 cents) for week-long courses. More local residents have already lined up for the IIC’s computer courses, as it is the only place in town offering such services. CSSC director Tolipov remarked, "I am really happy to see how we are growing in terms of educating local residents in computer literacy. We will be further developing the site in Aravan by expanding services available to people and equal the productivity of the Nookat site."

From the RFE/RL Central Asia Report Vol. 6, No. 8, 10 March 2006: CENTRAL ASIA: INTERNET FILLS VOID LEFT BY MEDIA ON RELIGIOUS FREEDOM ISSUES While the degree of media freedom varies considerably among the five countries of Central Asia, there appears to be a region-wide aversion to the thorny issue of religious freedom. It is difficult to gauge whether the reasons might lie in a reluctance to confront controversy -- as some argue -- or in state-imposed strictures or even a fear of offending. The result is that, aside from cursory references to the dominant religions, the domestic media have generally shied away from questions of faith. But civil-society groups and independent media outlets -- with the help of increased Internet penetration -- are trying to change that. The barriers to free expression are considerable in this region, where authoritarian administrations are often eager to keep a tight lid on public debate. That presents a considerable challenge for media organizations, which operate without the safeguards enjoyed by their counterparts in the West, and sometimes leaves local journalists fearing for their own safety. Taboo Topic Eric Freedman is on the faculty of the journalism school at Michigan State University. He recently conducted research into independent news websites' coverage of religion in Central Asia. He concluded that the topic of freedom of conscience remains almost untouched among domestic media. "News organizations -- whether they are independent or supported by [nongovernmental organizations] or a state or a party --tend to avoid controversies and political controversies," Freedman said. "And religion certainly falls into that category of public policy and political controversy in the region." Local journalists tend to avoid religious freedom issues, he says, while coverage of religion is often limited to dominant faiths --like Sunni Islam -- and other officially recognized confessions, such as Orthodox Christianity. Control Over Media In countries like Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, authorities regularly exercise control over what media outlets publish. That allows them to publish selectively to achieve official aims. In mid-January, an official from the Uzbek State Committee for Religious Affairs, Behzod Qodyrov, touted a rise in the number of registered religious groups to 2,186. The figure, he argued, "proves the absence of any restrictions or obstacles to freedom of religion in Uzbekistan." Igor Rotar is a Central Asia correspondent for Forum-18, a Norway-based news agency specializing in religious rights. He told RFE/RL that the Uzbek announcement was a prime example of official propaganda. "There was a recent statement by an official who wrote that so-and-so many religious organizations are registered in Uzbekistan and that this is a proof of religious freedom," Rotar said. "But he 'forgot' to mention that this number is equal to just one-third the number of religious organizations registered in Kazakhstan [where the population is smaller]. He also said that the Jehovah's Witnesses group was registered in Uzbekistan but he 'forgot' to mention that they are registered in just two towns. In other parts of the country, police regularly detain Jehovah's Witnesses. Two people served over one year in prison each simply for their belief." Internet A Valuable Source Michigan State University's Freedman said Internet news agencies, NGOs, and the international community have become major providers of information on religious issues in Central Asia despite obstacles to Internet viewing. The Internet appears to be partly filling the void left after Western radio stations -- including Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty -- were closed down in Uzbekistan. Freedman singles out the London-based Institute for War and Peace Reporting; the Open Society Institute's Eurasianet.org; and IRIN News, the United Nations' Integrated Regional Information Networks. He adds the Moscow-based ferghana.ru website and Forum-18 to his list of Internet pioneers: "It looks at [religious freedom] and it reports on it in a way that is very much like traditional Western European and U.S. coverage in that stories tend to be fact-based," Freedman said. "There is an attempt to obtain multiple viewpoints, although what the Forum-18 experience and what the other news services we looked at have encountered -- and certainly Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty -- is that government officials are often not responsive to press inquiries regardless where they come from." Still, the environment for such reporting remains mostly unfriendly in official terms. Independent media outlets feel compelled to rely heavily on anonymous sources. Local reporters often work under pseudonyms to avoid harassment and possible prosecution. Forum-18's Igor Rotar was detained upon his arrival in the Tashkent airport in August and deported to Russia two days later. He has reported on harassment of Baptists in Kazakhstan and Hare Krishna followers in western Uzbekistan, and he wrote about the demolition of a synagogue in Tajikistan, among other issues. Brighter Future However, information providers are optimistic about the Internet's future in Central Asia despite the current obstacles for would-be viewers. Daniil Kislov is the founder of the ferghana.ru information agency: "According to our estimates, about 2 percent of Uzbek citizens get information from the Internet either by visiting websites or receiving print-outs from relatives and friends," Kislov said. "I should point out that the influence of Internet publications and the number of Internet users are growing because people seek news in the current information vacuum. Internet is also the most influential media among the elites." Such reasoning suggests the impact of Internet coverage of religious-freedom issues is strong and influences elites both in the West and inside Central Asian. "One of the longer term impacts, I think, of reporting from the outside on Central Asia is that it does raise awareness among policymakers and funding agencies and NGOs in other parts of the world," Freedman said. "So that if you were with the World Bank, for example, or the OSCE, or Committee to Protect Journalists, or another entity in the West, this is a way you get information. You may ultimately work that in as you make decisions on who to fund, who to loan money to. Individuals on the outside make pressure on their members of parliament or congress to do something. So there is the possibility that will generate some outside pressure." Freedman stressed that media coverage raises the awareness of local citizens, including those working for government institutions. Such efforts to inform extend beyond the existing situation to include examples from the international community, he said. That could translate into long-term gains as young people form their opinions about issues like freedom of conscience and freedom of speech. (By Gulnoza Saidazimova. Originally published on March 7, 2006.)