It has been reported [1] that the Uzbek-language website Newsuz.com [2] has been blocked in Uzbekistan. “After a series of critical publications on human rights issues, gas supply issues, and price growth, and also analytical publications on the recent elections, we began receiving letters with threats and demands to follow information posted on government sites. We did not do that and, as a result, out site was blocked,” Newsuz.Com editor-in-chief Aziz Nosirov said [3].
The Uzbek government has often denied the existence of Internet filtering: “We live in the era of computer technologies, and all statements that the Internet is somehow censored or anything are a height of naivete,” former Foreign minister Eljer Ganiyev once declared [4].
However, and according to the Open Net Initiative (ONI), [5] Uzbekistan maintains the most extensive and pervasive filtering system among tested Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries. Reporters Without Borders [6] (RSF) announced on November 7 2006 that Uzbekistan is among the 13 countries that the NGO labels “Enemies of the Internet [7]“.