YouTube site blocked in Tajikistan
By Aynur Jafarova
Almost all the Internet providers of Tajikistan have partially blocked the public access to the popular video-sharing website YouTube, the country's Internet users said in a post on social networks.
Only two major providers- Tajik 'daughter' of Russian Megafon and the private provider Telecomm Technology- kept the access to YouTube open by Tuesday evening.
The reason for the blockage of the website is unknown.
This is the fourth time since July 2012 that YouTube is blocked in Tajikistan. In the past two years, the Tajik authorities have repeatedly blocked various websites, in particular, social network Facebook, Russian news portals ria.ru, vesti.ru, gazeta.ru, fergana.ru and a number of other resources, blaming the disruptions on "technical problems." But later they unblocked them.
Last time the access to YouTube was blocked in Tajikistan in May 2013 when the opposition Central Asian channel 'K +' published a program on the website which was led by Dodojon Atovulloyev, an opposition Tajik journalist living abroad.
The cadres of the wedding ceremony of Tajik President Emomali Rahmon's son Rustam Emomali were shown in the program. Atovulloyev criticized the splendor of the wedding. However, after a few days the access to the video source was restored.