DUSHANBE, March 4, 2013, Asia-Plus  -- The Poytakht (The Capital) public TV channel public is expected to resume broadcasting today evening.  “The channel stopped broadcasting because of technical problems with transmission equipment,” Poytakht director Abduqodir Abduqahhor told Asia-Plus in an interview.

According to him, all the necessary spare parts have already been delivered from Ukraine and the television channel will resume broadcasting today at 8:00 pm.

Poytakht, which is controlled by the Dushanbe city administration, has not been available since the morning of February 25.  Many people attributed that to the upcoming presidential election in Tajikistan.

Abduqodir Abduqahhor, however, denied these suppositions as absolutely baseless.  “We are not the opposition TV channel,” said Poytakht director.  “Our retransmitter is really very old.  Each TV station must have a spare retransmitter but the previous director of the TV channel had not cared about that.  Moreover, such retransmitters are not manufactured any longer and we asked Ukrainian specialists to find spare parts for our rentrasmitter.”

Tajik Journalists’ Union head Akbarali Sattorov also considers that the Poytakht broadcasting suspension has nothing to do with the upcoming presidential elections in the country.

Meanwhile, Radio Liberty’s Tajik Service reported on February 26 that Poytakht has gone off the air after broadcasting an interview with a prominent dissident poet.  On the evening of February 24, the Poytakht TV channel showed an interview with Ms. Gulrukhsor Safiyeva, who is known for her verses criticizing the Tajik government.

The Poytakht public television channel now can be picked up by residents of Dushanbe and nearby districts; in all, some 20 million people.