BACKGROUND: In its short history on-line, the five Central Asian states have earned the dubious distinction of comprising one quarter of the world’s "enemies of the Internet," according to the Paris-based watchdog group Reporters Sans Frontiers. Throughout Central Asia, Telecommunications are tightly controlled. In Tajikistan, the state-run Telecom Technologies provides the country’s only Internet access and restricts web-access to Dushanbe, the capital. Uzbekistan allows privately owned ISPs, but they are subject to monitoring by the telecommunications ministry. In Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, the authorities often charge private ISPs prohibitively high connection and usage fees. Last November, Kazakhstan passed a law setting up a new monitoring agency, the Republican Center for Billing Telecommunication Traffic, that will route all Internet traffic in the country through a centralized system, giving the state power to monitor web sites and read e-mail.

Turkmenistan is in a league of its own. Turkmenistan’s Ministry of Communication recently revoked the licenses of all private Internet service providers in the country for alleged administrative violations. The incident follows pattern of media repression throughout Central Asia with the Internet as just another facet. The Internet did not arrive in the country until 1997 and has only made "rudimentary developments" since. The 2,000 who do have Internet access in the country are mostly concentrated in the capital and confined to international business community, with the exception of a few NGOs. At one point, six ISPs operated in the country: four independent, non-government controlled, plus two state-run providers. Now, with the help of the new licensing restrictions, there is only one: Turkmen Telecom, which controls 95 percent of the Internet business in the country.

The watchdog group Reporters Sans Frontiers calls Turkmenistan a "black hole" of information. Until recently, non-governmental organizations in Turkmenistan have enjoyed free Internet access through independent ISPs, mostly USAID recipients, which have allowed them to publicize their campaigns and solicit new donors abroad. Ariana Ltd., the largest and most dynamic independent ISP in Turkmenistan, provided free service to 20-30 NGOs, according to its director Vagif Zeynalov, who supervises a staff of 13. Turkmen Telecom offers no such rate breaks. Whatever the government’s true motive – political or economic – the likely effect of Turkmenistan’s new licensing restrictions will be to drive many non-governmental organizations (NGOs) out of operation.

IMPLICATIONS: Internet repression is not limited to Turkmenistan, and must be seen as part of a larger campaign to control information in the region. Though this and previous incidents have provoked the scorn of international observers and human rights groups, the Central Asian leaders seem impervious to such criticism. All of the Central Asian countries are signatories of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which provides that: "everyone shall have the right to receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers." But more compelling than pleasing an international audience is maintaining a grip on their local constituencies.

The political benefits of Turkmenistan’s new licensing restrictions are obvious: the government can control all information circulated in the country. This will have the likely effect of increasing self-censorship among many Internet users: they will feel intimidated to express dissenting views that could provoke reprisals against them or their families. Protest letters circulating after the incident offered a different explanation, based on economics. To justify the revocation of Internet licenses, the Turkmen Ministry of Information claimed that the ISPs had falsified information in official reports. However, the Socio-Ecological Union, Catena Ecological Club, and Law and Environment Eurasia Project in a June 5 press release contend that the revocation was an arbitrary action aimed at destroying competition to the state Internet provider.

The first decade of independence for the five Central Asian states coincided with the Internet revolution, an unprecedented technological breakthrough that transformed the worldwide economy, sped up communications, and opened up access to information. In the developing world, the Internet offered countries a chance to leapfrog stages of development and enter the global economy much faster than their industrial forebears. However, not all governments have embraced this opportunity. For governments whose power is centralized, the Internet represents a decentralizing force that threatens the status quo. Information is power, and nowhere is this axiom clearer than in former communist Central Asian countries, where the governments’ power rests in keeping their citizens isolated and ill informed.

CONCLUSIONS: The Central Asian governments perceive the Internet as a threat. The new technology provides its users access to new ideas and political alternatives. The decentralized nature of the medium has the potential to circumvent the governments’ best efforts to centralize power and control information, which is necessary to preserve the status quo. But given the overall poverty of the region, the leaders’ paranoia is unwarranted. Internet access requires computer hardware – a scarce commodity in Central Asia. The marriage of media and politics is not unique to Central Asia. However, the leaders there have shown little restraint in manipulating the media for their own political ends.

Government control of the telecom industry throughout Central Asia bodes ill for political opposition. Even in Kazakhstan, which boasts of having private media, problems persist because government insiders own most of the major outlets. In such a system, opposition Web sites can be shut down for "technical problems," as they were last fall before the parliamentary elections. In the final analysis, waging war against the Internet represents a losing battle. The current batch of leaders cannot stay in power forever, and when they leave office, the new technology will eventually expand and spread throughout in Central Asia.

AUTHOR BIO: Bea Hogan is a New York-based journalist who writes frequently about Central Asian issues. She holds a Masters degree in international affairs from Columbia University and is a returned Peace Corps Volunteer from Uzbekistan.

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