Kazakhstan tightens control over Internet

The Central Asian country has been criticised for restricting freedom of expression even as it seeks to woo foreign investment.

ASTANA, March 1, 2010 (AFP) - Kazakhstan has created a new centre dedicated to cracking down on blacklisted websites ranging from pornography to those deemed to promote political extremism, an official announced Monday.

The Central Asian country, which this year became the first ex-Soviet state to hold the rotating chairmanship of the OSCE, has been criticised for restricting freedom of expression even as it seeks to woo foreign investment.

The new service, called "the centre for computer incidents", is similar to Internet watchdogs that exist throughout the world, the head of Kazakhstan's state communications agency, Kuanyshbek Esekeyev, told parliament.

Esekeyev said the authorities had many questions regarding "religious and political extremism" on the Internet, the Interfax-Kazakhstan news agency reported.

He said the centre's function would be to monitor websites which have a "pornographic or extreme character".

"At the current time work is being carried out with an entire blacklist of sites which have a destructive character for society," he added.

Rights activists had already protested a law signed by President Nursultan Nazarbayev in July which allows the shutting down of a website for three months if it is deemed to have intentionally published illegal information.

Nazarbayev has ruled the energy-rich Central Asian state since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, before which he was its top Communist Party official, and shows little sign of ceding power.

Activists have complained that the country's dismal rights record makes a mockery of its chairmanship of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, a pan-Atlantic democracy and security body.