We already wrote that Kyrgyz ISPs started blocking independent news websites that are critical of the Kyrgyz government. None of ISPs did not give any comments on it. Most internet users believe that it is due to the blocked websites’ content that is critical of the government that made ISPs block the websites, notably the information about Eugene Gourevitch, ex-director general of MGN Group, a company that managed the assets of the Development Fund of Kyrgyzstan (Italian court accused Gourevitch of large scale fraud and issued an arrest warrant for him).

Not only ISPs, but owners of internet forums are also filtering the content. Moderators at the popular internet forum Diesel have been blocking and deleting [ru] the topics opened to discuss Eugene Gourevitch. However, no one knows whether or not ISPs and internet forums were forced by the government to filter the content or it is a self-censorship act in order not to mess with authorities. In any case, it is an indicator of deterioration of freedom of speech in the country.

Despite the block, lots of internet users are using different proxy servers and anonymizers that help bypassing the blocks. However, some proxy servers are not correctly adjusted to display Cyrillic letters. NinjaProxy, most popular proxy server among Kyrgyz internet users, is one of them. Here is the picture of how it displays blocked web-site of Ferghana.Ru:

There are tons of other proxy servers that do not have such problems, and we could list them here in order to help those who encounter abovementioned problem. But we wont, as most of them are are difficult to use and full of different ads and pop-up windows that irrirate people much. And there is an easy way for bypassing the blocks – via Google Translate. Here is a video that we made today that shows how you can use Google Translete to access blocked web-sites: