After the events of the past year I suppose something like this was inevitable. Now, politicians are touchy about media coverage at the best of times, but the wording of the resolution appears to echo certain people’s belief that notorious troublemakers such as the, er, BBC were behind the tragic events in Andijan:

“Accredited foreign journalists are forbidden from calling for changes by force in the existing constitutional set-up; violating the territorial integrity of the republic; propagandizing war and violence, cruelty, national, race, or religious hostility; and are also forbidden from interfering in the domestic affairs of Uzbekistan.”

Furthermore, there’s the touching belief that governments have a business regulating their citizens’ journalistic endeavours in other countries:

“The rights and obligations of foreign journalists can also be regulated on the basis of bilateral agreements with the countries concerned.”

By this I assume that it means if Uzbekistan concludes a bilateral agreement with country X, then journalists from country X may find their operational rights in Uzbekistan severely restricted. I suppose this might be an agreeable situation for countries whose leaders, like Uzbekistan’s, take rather a dim view of media criticism. It also potentially opens the door for the extradition of pesky, meddling journalists, without whom might’ve gotten away with it …