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Wednesday, 14 December 2005, 11:00 GMT

Kazakhs shut Ali G star's website

Sacha Baron Cohen Authorities in Kazakhstan have been so angered by comedian Sacha Baron Cohen's alter ego, Kazak TV host Borat Sagdiyev, they have closed his website.

The comedian, best known for his Ali G character, satirises the central Asian country as racist and sexist.

Baron Cohen used Kazakh-owned www.borat.kz to respond sarcastically to legal threats from officials.

The country's web regulators said they suspended the site to stop the British comic from "bad-mouthing" the country.

Baron Cohen's Borat character first surfaced in the Ali G Show on Channel 4 in the UK.

Nurlan Isin, president of the Association of Kazakh IT Companies, told Reuters news agency: "We've done this so he can't bad-mouth Kazakhstan under the .kz domain name.

"He can go and do whatever he wants at other domains."

'Ill mannered'

Last month, Baron Cohen adopted the Borat role to present the MTV Europe awards.

The performance included an arrival in an "Air Kazakh" propeller plane flown by a pilot holding a vodka bottle.

The Kazakh Foreign Ministry described his portrayal as "utterly unacceptable, being a concoction of bad taste and ill manners which is completely incompatible with ethics and civilised behaviour".

The ministry later threatened to take legal action against the comedian.



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Related to this story:
Kazakh 'challenge' to Ali G star (14 Nov 05 |  Entertainment )
US critics applaud new Ali G show (19 Jul 04 |  Entertainment )

RELATED INTERNET LINKS
Kazakh.com
Kazakhstan Embassy
Ali G in da USA
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