thetravelprblog

No sense of humour? Hire a PR

September 14, 2006 by Neil Maclean 

The Kazakhstan government is so steamed up about Sacha Baron Cohen’s new film it has hired a couple of PR firms to try and limit the damage to their country’s reputation.
Cohen plays Borat, a bumbling Kazakh TV presenter and acccording to the Daily Mail, President Nursultan Nazarbayev is so peeved at the portrayal of the Kazakhstan character he will tackle the subject when he meets George W  at the White House .

It seems foreign ministry spokesman Yerzhan Ashykbayev is one of those charged with leading the anti-Cohen, anti-Barat backlash. The response, predictably, came in the form of a video on the Official Borat website.

In the video, Borat said, “In response to Mr. Ashykbayev’s comments, I’d like to state I have no connection with Mr. Cohen and fully support my Government’s decision to sue this Jew.

“Since the 2003 Tuleyakiv reforms, Kazakhstan is as civilized as any other country in the world.

“Women can now travel on inside of bus, homosexuals no longer have to wear blue hats, and age of consent has been raised to eight years old.”

His blatant outpouring then prompted the Kazakh government to hire two public relations firms to counter the claims, and ran a four-page advertisement in The New York Times.

Via pidgeonblog2

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