Watchdog

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Eeurope's representative on freedom of the media has urged Tajik authorities to restore access to YouTube.

In her statement on June 11, Dunja Mijatovic called on Dushanbe to ensure Tajik citizens’ "unrestricted access to the Internet" and asked the Tajik government to officially explain the blockage.

The popular video-sharing website has stopped being accessible via the majority of Internet providers in Tajikistan as of June 9.

The chief of the Tajik government's Communications Service, Beg Zuhurov, told RFE/RL that his agency had nothing to do with the situation.

The reason for the blockage is not known.

In the past few years, Tajik authorities have blocked several online news and social-media websites, including YouTube, Facebook, and RFE/RL's Tajik Service, but later unblocked them.

At the time, Zuhurov blamed the disruptions on "technical problems."

Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in Kazakhstan have urged President Nursultan Nazarbaev to veto the country's new Criminal Code and related legislation.

Eighteen leading Kazakh NGOs issued a joint statement on June 11, saying that the amendments "directly violate the right of citizens to assemble" and include chapters targeting public organizations and their leaders.

The activists point out that a clause that punishes libel with a three-year prison term has not been eliminated from the code and that a new clause has been added that imposes a 10-year jail sentence for "intentional distribution of false information."

The NGOs who signed the statement included Kazakhstan's Bureau for Human Rights, Human Rights Charter, International Law Initiative, the Foundation for Parliamentary Development, and Adil Soz (A Just Word).

The Kazakh parliament approved the new Criminal Code on June 11 and sent the document to Nazarbaev for signing.