Threat to VOA Uzbek Service

If Voice of America’s Uzbek language service is shut down, the Uzbek-speaking population throughout Central Asia will be cut off from alternative media sources, according to media watchers in the region.



The US Broadcasting Board of Governors, BBG, recommended closing the Uzbek service of Voice of America so that funding can be redirected to other international media projects.



The decision was announced at the US administration’s 2008 budget presentation to Congress.



TV broadcasts of VOA in the Uzbek language are available throughout Uzbekistan via satellite and are transmitted by local terrestrial channels in southern Kyrgyzstan.



A source in the Uzbek service told NBCentralAsia that VOA is available on shortwave radio in Uzbekistan, despite regular attempts by the authorities to block broadcasts. Kyrgyzstan also broadcasts the service to one part of the Ferghana Valley in Uzbekistan on FM.



NBCentralAsia political analyst Avez Baburov says that closing the Uzbek service will take away one of the few alternative sources of information for 25 million Uzbek speakers across Central Asia.



“The closure of the Uzbek Voice of America service is like cutting off the oxygen to a young democracy,” said Baburov. “Its audience includes Uzbeks in Kazakstan, Tajikistan and other countries.”



Its imminent closure also hails the end of online broadcasting in the Uzbek language, Baburov adds.



An NBCentralAsia observer in the Ferghana Valley says that the US doesn’t appear to realise that the Uzbek VOA service is a powerful tool, “America will be making a big mistake in shutting down the Uzbek service, since it will lose its power to influence the opinions of local people through expressing its position.”



The rest of the world will also find it more difficult to receive uncensored information about Uzbekistan as a result of VOA’s departure.



(News Briefing Central Asia draws comment and analysis from a broad range of political observers across the region.)