Andre Yoskowitz
11 Mar 2012 21:33
After one week of being blocked, officials in Tajikistan have restored access to Facebook and certain news sites.
"Yes, we've allowed access to Facebook but we don't know how long it will last," says one ISP. "If we again receive a signal to shut it down we will have to comply."
Following the publication of an article critical of the country's long-standing president, Tajikistan had blocked all access to two Russian-language news sites and the social networking giant Facebook on March 4th.
ISPs in the nation said the shutdown was ordered by the state-run communications service. Any user who had tried to access the sites were met with a redirect to their homepage, or the homepage of their ISP.
The news sites, tjknews.com and zvezda.ru, had published a story critical of President Emomali Rakhmon, who assumed power in 1992. It is well-known around the world that Rakhmon stole the 2006 election by fraud, and WikiLeaks brought to light that the president and his family have pillaged the country's coffers for years, including taking all profits from the state-run Tajik Aluminium Company (TALCO). The country is the poorest of the former Soviet states.
Tjknews.com had posted an article headlined 'Tajikistan on the eve of a revolution.'
Tajikistan has a population of 7.5 million, but only 35,000 Facebook users.