Kazakh threat to silence Borat
Astana
November 15, 2005 - 12:21AM
KAZAKHSTAN'S Foreign Ministry has threatened legal action against a British comedian who wins laughs by portraying the central Asian state as a country populated by drunks who enjoy cow-punching as a sport.
Sacha Baron Cohen, who plays Kazakh television presenter Borat in his Da Ali G Show, has won fame ridiculing Kazakhstan on British and US channels.
Cohen appears to have drawn official Kazakh ire after he hosted the annual MTV Europe Music Awards in Lisbon this month as Borat, who arrived in an Air Kazakh propeller plane controlled by a one-eyed pilot clutching a vodka bottle.
"We do not rule out that Mr Cohen is serving someone's political order designed to present Kazakhstan and its people in a derogatory way," said Kazakh Foreign Ministry spokesman Yerzhan Ashykbayev.
"We reserve the right to any legal action to prevent new pranks of the kind." He declined to elaborate.
Cohen's jokes about the Central Asian state include claims that the people would shoot a dog and then have a party, and that local wine was made from fermented horse urine.
"We view Mr Cohen's behaviour at the MTV Europe Music Awards as utterly unacceptable, being a concoction of bad taste and ill manners which is completely incompatible with ethics and civilised behaviour," Mr Ashykbayev said.
REUTERS
hahaha brilliant!
Astana
November 15, 2005 - 12:21AM
KAZAKHSTAN'S Foreign Ministry has threatened legal action against a British comedian who wins laughs by portraying the central Asian state as a country populated by drunks who enjoy cow-punching as a sport.
Sacha Baron Cohen, who plays Kazakh television presenter Borat in his Da Ali G Show, has won fame ridiculing Kazakhstan on British and US channels.
Cohen appears to have drawn official Kazakh ire after he hosted the annual MTV Europe Music Awards in Lisbon this month as Borat, who arrived in an Air Kazakh propeller plane controlled by a one-eyed pilot clutching a vodka bottle.
"We do not rule out that Mr Cohen is serving someone's political order designed to present Kazakhstan and its people in a derogatory way," said Kazakh Foreign Ministry spokesman Yerzhan Ashykbayev.
"We reserve the right to any legal action to prevent new pranks of the kind." He declined to elaborate.
Cohen's jokes about the Central Asian state include claims that the people would shoot a dog and then have a party, and that local wine was made from fermented horse urine.
"We view Mr Cohen's behaviour at the MTV Europe Music Awards as utterly unacceptable, being a concoction of bad taste and ill manners which is completely incompatible with ethics and civilised behaviour," Mr Ashykbayev said.
REUTERS
hahaha brilliant!
