One site and five bloggers decide to end their activities in Kashkadarya

On June 5, the Internet publication Nasafnews.uz, operating mainly in Kashkadarya, announced that it was ending its activity. At the same time, the head of the publication, Umid Karimov, announced that he will no longer run the “Kapitan Karimov” blog on Telegram.

“I don’t want to dwell on the reasons for this. Thank you to everyone who supported us and expressed their trust,” the message posted on the Telegram channel of the Nasafnews.uz site reads.

Following this news, four other bloggers – Maksud Muzaffarov, Otabek Artikov, Azizbek Yazdurdiyev, Uroljon Kamolov (author of the Turon24/7 telegram channel), as well as the KeshNews Telegram channel – announced that they are suspending their activities.

It is not known whether they came to this decision together or not. Maksud Muzaffarov explained his decision by the fact that “the will of his parents is more important than anything else”. Umid Karimov tried to express his inner feelings through video.

The bloggers say that the decision to stop their activities is related to the recent trial and sentence. On May 29, Umid Karimov and Maksud Muzaffarov were found to have committed an offense under various Articles of the Administrative Responsibility Code and were imprisoned for 5 days.

The bloggers were accused of being rude to the DIA officers of Shakhrisabz district, having quarrels and discrediting the DIA officers in front of citizens, deliberately disregarding the rules of behavior in society, shouting, and committing petty hooliganism.

Auto-blogger Maksud Muzaffarov reported on his Telegram channel that internal affairs officers took Umid Karimov to the DIA, due to the blogger’s objection that the employee was checking a “parked car”, and the officer who checked them was deputy head of the Shakhrisabz district DIA. Later, Otabek Artikov reported that the auto-blogger, who disclosed these circumstances to the public, was also arrested and taken to court.

In an interview with Kun.uz, the bloggers complained that they hoped to find justice in court, but the judge did not even listen to them.

“Seeing that there is no trust in the court, I decided to go back. I believed in the court. I thought that the court would listen to me even if the DIA organized something, and I trusted the court and walked without fear. But seeing the opposite in court, I met a sad fate. We were imprisoned for 5 days due to the slander of two traffic officers. We were accused of being rude to the DIA officers, discrediting them. However, we did not do that. While the laws protect us neither as citizens nor as bloggers, it makes no sense to continue blogging under such circumstances,” Maksud Muzaffarov said.

“In the court, I repeatedly asked the staff of Traffic Safety Department to show them the footage recorded on the body camera, where we were rude, quarreled, and mistreated. Because when these images were presented, my innocence would be clearly proven. However, this request was denied,” Umid Karimov said.

I just said “parked car” to the DIA officers who were checking the car standing on the roadside. Because of these words, I was arrested. I asked them to give me a lawyer in court or to let me inform a lawyer I know. However, the judge did not satisfy my request. I didn’t hit the DIA officer, I didn’t insult. But I was imprisoned for 5 days. In court, my words were simply ignored. I was sentenced based on the false testimony of the DIA officers. After serving the sentence imposed by the court, I decided to end my career”.

In an interview with Kun.uz, the bloggers said that this is not a publicity stunt, they are worried about the future of themselves and their loved ones, and that’s why they are stopping blogging.

After Maksud Muzaffarov and Umid Karimov announced that they would no longer be bloggers, several other bloggers agreed with them and wrote that they would not continue their activities.

“Those imprisoned for 5 days are my close friends. I took them as a sign of stifling the freedom of speech that they were arrested in one day for groundless reasons, their case was heard in court on the same day, and they were sentenced to 5-day imprisonment. Earlier, I was also harassed by anonymous profiles, they said “you are not a friend of Uzbeks”, I also wrote about this on my channel. Who will guarantee that I will walk safely tomorrow? If this happened to me, my mother would not be able to bear it, I don’t want to become my mother’s killer. That’s why I don’t want to blog anymore. I want to live among ordinary people,” Azizbek Yazdurdiyev said.

“I was not among those sentenced to administrative imprisonment. But after the injustice done to them in court, I felt in danger. It is clear that I will end up playing with fire in a society where the courts act blindly in matters affecting the lives of citizens. Therefore, I preferred to stop on time. I don’t really think about going back to blogging someday. I want to enjoy a quiet life. I don’t want to be in fear for my life,” Otabek Artikov noted.

“I’ve been thinking about going abroad for a long time, so I moved. We thought that the rest of the team would manage our channel, but since several bloggers were arrested without any evidence, only on the false testimony of DIA officers, I did not want to put the team at risk.

I haven’t been able to talk to all my blogger friends since I’ve been away. However, I would like them to respect the fact that most of them have a different source of income and blogging is a hobby. In addition, Maksud Muzaffarov was continuing his activity mainly due to the justice in the courts, that is, he worked while proving in court the unjust fines imposed by employees of the Traffic Safety Department. Arresting him without any evidence, involving his father in the case, probably had a strong impact,” Uroljon Kamolov said.