Internet Shutdowns

The already-slow internet in Tajikistan ground even slower this week following criticism from President Emomali Rahmon, who expressed fears about the risk of online communication bolstering terrorism. Speaking at a meeting of post-Soviet security officials on May 21, Rahmon said more needed to be done to combat the activity of extremists in the virtual space. By the same evening, Tajik authorities had sprung into action, extending the blockages on websites to all Google resources, which meant that internet users could not access Gmail, YouTube or Google Drive, among other things. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and other social media sites are also off-limits. VPNs, the software that many use to circumvent blocks, are also performing patchily. And people with Android telephones cannot experiment with downloading any others since Google Play is blocked.