Uzbekistan Flips the Filtering Switch

Andrew Stroehlein on online censorship
A few months ago, I wrote an article for Online Journalism Review on Internet censorship in Uzbekistan, concluding that while the regime of Islam Karimov did establish the technical means for filtering content seen by Web users within Uzbekistan, there was as yet little evidence that the authorities were actively using it. Well, that seems to have changed now. Sources in Uzbekistan tell me that several sites are inaccessible and are thought to be blocked by the authorities. The blocked sites include, the opposition party Erk, the opposition movement Birlik, and a new website, stopdictatorkarimov.com, all hosted abroad, obviously.