Kazakhstan blocks opposition websites
Borat unavailable for comment
Posted in Law, 24th October 2007 09:56 GMT
Free whitepaper – Blade learning lab and technical community
Kazakhstan yesterday blocked access to several websites critical of the government, including the "main opposition outlets", kub.kz and geo.kz, Reuters reports.
Kub - which said it said it had been "officially notified by the Kazakhstan Network Information Centre of its closure" - quickly posted a statement on another site which "linked the closure to its publication of sensitive telephone transcripts last week involving people it said were senior government officials".
Abai Sakenov, administrator of geo.kz, reported: "I was notified yesterday of the suspension of the domain. I only found out about it last night."
Reaction to the blackout has been predictable. One blogger thundered: "Are they completely mad? You can't stamp out freedom!"
Maybe not, but back in 2005, Kazakhstan pulled the plug on borat.kz, home of Sacha Baron Cohen's "boorish, sexist and racist Kazakh television reporter", and threatened legal action against the Brit comedian. Borat enthused: "I have no connection to Mr Cohen and fully support my government's position to sue this Jew." ®

Enabling the Agile Data Center
Analyst Keynote: The Register Agile Data Center Summit
Analyst Keynote: The Register Agile Data Center Summit

Dirty, dirty PCs: The X-rated picture guide
Top 500 supers - rise of the Linux quad-cores
Early adopters bloodied by Ubuntu's Karmic Koala
Sign up, sign up for The Register IT security newsletter