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Valentine's Day 2012: Uzbekistan Discourages Celebrating 'Alien' Western Holiday

Though there is no official sanction against the holiday, government officials in Uzbekistan gave verbal instructions Tuesday to forgo Valentine's Day activities in favor of celebrating the birthday of a national poet, the Associated Foreign Press reports. The government of Uzbekistan instructed mass media outlets and stores to ignore the holiday -- which has become increasingly popular in recent... moreThough there is no official sanction against the holiday, government officials in Uzbekistan gave verbal instructions Tuesday to forgo Valentine's Day activities in favor of celebrating the birthday of a national poet, the Associated Foreign Press reports. The government of Uzbekistan instructed mass media outlets and stores to ignore the holiday -- which has become increasingly popular in recent years among youth in predominantly Muslim Uzbekistan -- as anxiety continues to grow around the "excess of liberalism" from Western cultural imports, according to the AFP. view page