These communications also mentioned how supporting government documents which were originally planned for inclusion had been forcibly removed because of copyright laws.

Their forced removal, Murray has said, is the government "trying to claw back the very limited gains in Freedom of Information in the UK",[2] especially attempts to close websites on which the supporting documents were posted instead.

Though many attempts to do this have proved successful, media interest has also meant that the documents frequently resurface on mirror sites.

[4] A minor controversy involved the choice of photographs on the 2007 paperback edition, two of the three photos having been the same as those previously appearing in the 2004 Lonely Planet guide to Central Asia by Bradley Mayhew, Paul Clammer and Michael Kohn.

Murray's front cover uses a sunset scene that had appeared on page 7 of the guide (and shows Khiva).