Fast Facts RFE/RL's Tajik Service attracts a young, influential audience with its timely, locally focused reporting. Language: Tajik Established: 1953 Distribution: Radio (SW, Satellite), Internet Coverage: Six hours a day Locations: Prague, Dushanbe Staff: 25 in Prague and Dushanbe, 2 stringers

Media Environment

• Freedom House Freedom of the Press Index, 2012: Not Free (168th/197)
• Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index, 2012: 122nd/179
• Most media outlets in Tajikistan are independent in name only. Despite constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech and of the press, journalists often face harassment and intimidation. The government controls the majority of printing presses and broadcasting facilities, and influences the judiciary.

Highlights

• Radio Ozodi regularly interviews political and civil society leaders, connecting them with ordinary Tajiks in a way other media are unable or unwilling to do.
• Radio Ozodi correspondents have uncovered several cases of torture in Tajik detention centers. The ensuing investigations prompted prosecutors to open criminal proceedings against police officers involved in torturing inmates.
• The Service’s website, ozodi.org is one of the most popular and trusted Tajik-language websites in the country. Tajik media outlets often reprint Radio Ozodi reports.
• In November 2011, exclusive reporting by Radio Ozodi on the brutal murder of two migrant workers in St. Petersburg, Russia led to demands by the Tajik government that Russia end the persecution of Tajik migrants.
• In September 2011, Radio Ozodi received an award from the OSCE and Media-Alliance "for objective coverage of press freedom issues and protection of journalists’ rights in Tajikistan."
• In 2011, two Radio Ozodi journalists, Firuz Barotov and Shahloi Gulkhoja, were recognized by Tajikistan’s Ministry of Health, the Center for Prevention of HIV/AIDS, and the Joint United Nations Program on HIV and AIDS for their outstanding coverage of the disease in Tajikistan.
• On May 3, 2010 – World Press Freedom Day – Radio Ozodi correspondent Abduqayum Qayumzood was honored by Tajikistan’s largest union of journalists, Media-Alliance for his “outstanding and courageous” reporting on corruption.

updated: 9 April 2012

Population
6.98 million (2011 World Bank estimate)

Most Common Languages:
Tajik, Russian, Uzbek

Press Freedom Index (Freedom House):
Not Free, ranked 171 out of 197 (2011)
 
Press Freedom Index (RSF):
123 out of 179 (2012)

Corruption Index (Transparency Int.):
152 out of 183 (2011)

Global Peace Index (IES):
117 out of 158 (2012)

Human Rights Watch:
Report on Tajikistan (2012)

Amnesty International:
Tajikistan Report (2011)