By IANS/RIA Novosti,
Bishkek : A court in the Kyrgyz city of Osh, where violent ethnic clashes claimed hundreds of lives in 2010, has banned an Uzbek-language rap song for promoting separatism and inciting hatred between Kyrgyz and Uzbek people.
The Uzbek-language song “Osh is an Uzbek Quarter” has become increasingly popular in the city, where at least 420 people were killed and over 2,000 injured in ethnic clashes between Uzbek and Kyrgyz residents in June 2010.
The song has been transmitted among locals mainly via mobile phones.
“According to experts from Osh State University, the content of the song incites mutual hatred and animosity between people of Kyrgyz and Uzbek nationalities,” the Prosecutor General’s Office said in a statement Wednesday.
“Ideas and views expressed in the song ‘Osh City Uzbek Mahala’ propagate intolerance of one nationality by the other and contain elements of separatism,” it said.
The court banned all dissemination of the song, including by internet.