From: Justin Burke (JBurke@sorosny.org)
Date: Thu Apr 06 2000 - 10:53:20 EDT
South Kazakhstan Region cuts Uzbek TV broadcasts on its territory
Text of report by the Kazakh news agency Interfax-Kazakhstan on 4th April
Shymkent, 4th April: South Kazakhstan Region (SKR) has reduced Uzbek TV
broadcasts, a deputy akim (head) of SKR supervising cultural issues,
Darkhan Mynbay, told a news conference.
He said that the Uzbek State TV channel broadcast had been reduced from
eight to four hours every day (two hours in the morning and two hours in
the evening).
At the same time Mynbay noted that Uzbek TV broadcast was "retained in the
full" in the village of Sayram and the town of Turkestan, where most of the
Uzbek diaspora live.
According to Mynbay, the amount of time given to Uzbek TV broadcasts on the
territory of Kazakhstan has been reduced due to the Uzbek side's debt owed
to the Regional retransmission centre. Moreover, he could not define the
sum of the debt. The centre itself was also not in a position to define the
amount of debt.
According to the latest census, around 2m people live in SKR, of whom about
16 per cent are ethinc Uzbeks.
Source: Interfax-Kazakhstan news agency, Almaty, in Russian 1503 gmt 04 Apr
00
BBC Mon CAU 040400/** AJBA/KA
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