MOSCOW, October 22 (RIA Novosti) – Television stations belonging to the high-profile daughter of Uzbekistan’s President Islam Karimov have stopped broadcasting, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported Tuesday.
RFE/RL cited its correspondents in the Central Asian nation’s capital, Tashkent, as saying the TV-Markaz, NTT, and SOFTS ceased transmitting on October 21.
Another channel, Forum TV, was also not available in some parts of the country, the US-funded broadcaster said in a report on its website.
A representative from TV-Markaz said its signal and that of SOFTS had gone off air because of unspecified maintenance issues, RFE/RL reported.
RFE/RL reported cited Uzbekistan's Independent Association of Nongovernmental Electronic Media as saying the channels would resume broadcasting later Tuesday.
Gulnara Karimova, 41, has in recent years increased her public profile by engaging in widely publicized philanthropic work and embarking on a pop-singing career. Some political analysts have tipped Karimova as a possible contender to succeed her father.
Her image has in recent months been tarnished, however, by a series of criminal investigations in Western Europe.
Swedish authorities last year investigated claims that Karimova received money from Swedish-Finnish telecommunications holding TeliaSonera in exchange for enabling it to operate in Uzbekistan.
A group of individuals linked to Karimova have been targeted in money-laundering investigations in Switzerland.
Recent developments also suggest Karimova’s loss of influence in official Uzbek circles.
The BBC’s Uzbek service reported in July that Karimova had been removed as her country’s envoy to the United Nations, a development that led to her loss of diplomatic immunity.
