Uzbekistan weighing to enter "propaganda of unnatural relationships between same-sex persons in the proposed draft information code, developed by the Information and Mass Communications Agency and which has been posted for public input.

The proposed code combines eight existing laws relating to the areas of informatization, dissemination and freedom of information, journalism and the media, openness of government agencies and the protection of children from information that is harmful to their health.

The phrase "unnatural same-sex relationships", which does not exist in current laws, appears in two articles of the proposed code:

Proposed Article 45. "Ensuring information security in the Internet" (this is an amended article 12-1 of the law on informatization "Dissemination of publicly available information in the Internet":

“The owner of a website and (or) a page of a website or other information resource, including a blogger, is obliged not to allow the use of his/her website and (or) a page of a website or other information resource on the Internet, on which public information is posted, in order to ... promote unnatural relationships between same-sex persons ...”.

Proposed Article 54 "Inadmissibility of abuse of the freedom of the media" (amended article 6 of the same name of the Media Law):

"The use of the media for the purpose of ... promoting unnatural relationships between same-sex persons is forbidden."

The definition of “blogger” in the Code is proposed to be left unchanged: “an individual who posts publicly available information of a socio-political, socio-economic and other nature on his website and (or) page of the website in the global information network Internet, including for its discussion by users of information.