DUSHABE, February 9, 2011, Asia-Plus -- A court in Dushanbe’s Firdavsi district yesterday found the Dushanbe independent weekly, Millat (Nation), guilty of libel and ordered it to pay 1,500 somoni to the Ministry of Agriculture and publish a disclaimer.

We will recall that the Ministry of Agriculture filed the defamation lawsuit against Millat on January 28, 2010, asking for 1 million somoni as compensation for the moral damage allegedly caused by article that gave "wrong and unproven information stating that the ministry is allegedly corrupted."

Ms. Adolat Mirzo, editor-in-chief of Millat, considers the verdict unfounded and unfair, because the information in the article was based on results of a parliamentary investigation, in which the ministry officials were found to have either misused or stolen 6.5 million somoni of state funds.

Such actions are pressure on freedom of expression and speech, but this decision “will not impact activity of our newspaper,” Adolat Mirzo said.  She added that it could not be ruled out that the weekly would appeal the court decision.