Radio Liberty’s Tajik Service, locally known as Radio Ozodi, reports the Tajik authorities have restored media accreditation to RFE/RL's correspondents in Tajikistan, 10 days after revoking their credentials over a report about a daughter of President Emomali Rahmon.

Six members of RFE/RL's Tajik Service reportedly returned to work in Dushanbe on December 6 after the Tajik Foreign Ministry reissued their accreditation on December 5.

Recall, the Tajik Foreign Ministry revoked the accreditation of six correspondents from Radio Ozodi on November 25. 

According to the broadcaster, the ministry said in a phone call on November 25 that the reason for withdrawing the accreditation was the Service's refusal to remove a story about the president's daughter being appointed to a top post.

RFE/RL said the report on President Emomali Rahmon's daughter, Rukhshona Rahmonova, was based on a post on the Foreign Ministry's website that was further confirmed to RFE/RL by a source in the ministry.

The news outlet said officials gave RFE/RL five minutes to remove the story, saying otherwise the Dushanbe-based correspondents would lose their accreditation.

The journalists' accreditation was suspended in the afternoon on November 25 after RFE/RL checked the sourcing of the report and decided to stand by the story, the broadcaster said.

It said Mirzonabi Kholiqzod, Mardon Muhammad, Abdullo Ashourov, Muhammadvafo Rahmatov, Amriddin Olimov and Shodmon Yatim who lost their accreditation had nothing to do with the news about the appointment of the Tajik president's daughter as the head of the International Relations Department of the Tajik Foreign Ministry.

It is the second time in recent weeks that Tajik officials have demanded that RFE/RL remove stories from its website.

On November 6, officials demanded the removal of a report on a U.S. State Department warning to U.S. citizens not to travel to Tajikistan because of potential terrorist threats.  RFE/RL refused to remove the story.

RFE/RL officially protested the decision to revoke the accreditation, which RFE/RL President Thomas Kent called “a blatant attack on our ability to do our jobs as journalists.”

Meanwhile, Tajikistan’s decision to revoke accreditation for six journalists from Radio Ozodi sparks broad concern

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) released a statement on November 28 calling on the Tajik Foreign Ministry to reinstate accreditation of the six RFE/RL journalists.

Barring journalists from doing their work as retaliation for their employers' publication of a news item will not bury the news, but will call further attention to it,” CPJ Deputy Executive Director Robert Mahoney said.  “We call on the Tajik Foreign Ministry to reinstate the accreditation of the six RFE/RL journalists immediately and to cease interfering with the media's ability to report events.”

The US Embassy in Dushanbe issued a statement on November 29 expressing concern over the cancelation of accreditations for RFE/RL’s journalists.  The United States calls on the authorities of Tajikistan to ensure that journalists have the right to freedom of expression and to hold opinions without interference in accordance with Tajikistan’s international obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has also expressed concern over the cancelation of accreditations of six journalists from the Radio Liberty’s Tajik Service.

A statement released by RSF on November 28, in particular, notes that freedom of the press and the situation of independent media continue to decline in Tajikistan.  “We are alarmed by the constant decline in the situation in Tajikistan for nearly two years and by the speed of this deterioration, and we fear that this country could become a new area in Central Asia where journalists have no rights,” RSF program director Lucie Morillon said.  The government is trying to gain complete control over media coverage as the social and economic situation keeps on worsening, RSF program director added.