DUSHANBE, August 24, 2010, Asia-Plus  -- The republican public association, Molodyozh Novogo Veka (New Age Youth), will launch its first Internet journalism development support project, Blogging as Means of Extension of Information Space.

The association director Rustam Tohirov says the project, designed for six months, will be launched on September 1 this year.  “The main objective of the project is in promoting popularization of blogging among Tajik journalists in order to expand the access of the country’s regions to information and support development of the civil journalism in the country for the purpose of advancing democracy, transparency and freedom of speech in Tajikistan,” he said.

According to the statistics from the Ministry of Culture, some 370 sources of information now function in the country, however, these indicators do not impact population’s access to information and cannot reflex actual development of freedom of speech at the proper level, Tohirov said, adding that the main reason for that is the fact that the majority of media in Tajikistan “release information locally.”

He noted that the project included a number of events, including seminars on blogging for young journalists working with print media, open lectures for students from the faculties and departments of journalism, roundtable meetings, esc.