Kazakhstan boots Borat, welcomes Hubbard

Officials in Kazakhstan have taken a hardline stance on one piece of hilarious fiction, while allowing another piece to flourish.

The Register reports:

The powers that be in Kazakhstan have pulled the plug on Sacha Baron Cohen's www.borat.kz - home of the Brit comedian's alter ego Borat - so "he can't badmouth Kazakhstan under the .kz domain name", as a Kazakh IT industry spokesman delicately put it to Reuters. Borat is, as UK readers know, a "boorish, sexist and racist Kazakh television reporter" who has infuriated the Kazakh authorities with his less than flattering comments about the former Soviet republic.

And while all this is going on, the Church of Scientology is boasting about its infiltration into Kazakhstan. Scientology Missions International proclaims it has ten "missions" (franchises) there and is growing:

In the 18th century they were conquered by Russia and were freed from the clutches of the USSR in 1991! And with that freedom soon came a gift: for the book Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, written by humanitarian L. Ron Hubbard, which was already spreading like wildfire across Russia, then made its way across the border into the country of Kazakhstan. In fact, even the government-owned stores were stocking Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental
Health.

Does this seem odd to anyone? Unplugging a comedian, while letting a "controversial to put it lightly" group like the Scientologists expand? If Kazakhstan is worried about its world image, it may be fighting the wrong fires.