Mary Lawlor, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, said that the dissolution of human rights NGOs signals a deteriorating environment for civil society and human rights defence in Tajikistan. She reiterated that Tajikistan must reconsider its attitudes towards civil society and view human rights defenders as allies instead of enemies.

Earlier in November 2023, Tajikistan Minister of Justice announced that 700 NGOs in the country had been liquidated over an 18-month period.

UN Special Rapporteur Mary Lawlor said, “Human rights defenders in Tajikistan working on so-called ‘sensitive’ issues have been reportedly subjected to threats and intimidation.”

“Human rights defenders working on so-called sensitive issues, including freedom from torture, the right to housing and compensation for requisitioned land, minority rights, freedom of belief and good governance, political rights, and particularly the right to free and fair elections have been reportedly subjected to threats and intimidation,” the Special Rapporteur said.

“Some of those NGOs had been in operation for over 20 years,” the UN expert continued. “This decision also affects those working on early intervention on disability issues, expanding access to education, supporting victims of domestic violence, protecting the environment and promoting public access to land.”

Some organisations were forced to close following unrest in the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region (GBAO) in 2022. Official statistics show that after these events, the courts ordered many public organisations to shut down while several other organisations self-dissolved. It is reported that in GBAO, of 300 registered organisations in early 2022, only around 10% can continue operating.

Several NGOs decided to self-dissolve after their directors were repeatedly summoned to the Department of Justice or local executive authorities. They were then reportedly placed under pressure or coerced into shutting down their organisations ‘voluntarily.’

“Interfering with the activities of NGOs and forcing civil society organisations to cease activities will have a serious knock-on impact on a whole range of human rights in Tajikistan,” Lawlor said. “I call on the government to reverse these closures.”

Source : OHCHR

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Tajikistan, said Tashiev, was making “territorial claims” against Kyrgyzstan in the talks.

“But our answer is that there should be no such claims,” Tashiev fumed, noting ominously that Kyrgyzstan had found “new documents” related to the border.

“Based on those, we know that many parts of Kyrgyzstan had been given to Tajikistan,” he claimed. “If [Tajikistan] does not renounce its territorial claims against Kyrgyzstan then we will legally present territorial claims to our neighbors.”

That brazen statement led observers of one of the longest-running border disagreements between two former Soviet republics bracing for the impact of a reply from Dushanbe.

Tashiev’s emergence as the powerful new head of Kyrgyzstan’s State Committee for National Security in 2020 coincided with a dramatic worsening of relations between the two countries.

Although conflicts between Kyrgyz and Tajik communities along the border occurred regularly before then, sometimes even involving soldiers, they remained largely local affairs.

But the “wars” of 2021 and 2022, by contrast, killed scores on both sides, left whole villages destroyed and — on both occasions — expanded the zone of the conflict.

Sure enough, Tashiev’s words didn’t go unheard in Tajikistan.

Kyrgyzstan’s ambassador was summoned by the Tajik Foreign Ministry, which warned that such comments could impair bilateral border talks.

Later that month, Tajik President Emomali Rahmon ordered the Defense Ministry to take control of several civilian airports in Tajikistan — including the Isfara airport near the Kyrgyz border.

But this time no bullets and bombs followed.

Instead, Rahmon and Kyrgyz counterpart Sadyr Japarov held talks on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York City just days later and again the following month at a summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in Bishkek, with a focus on delimitation and avoiding a repeat of hostilities.

Fast forward to December and not only is 2023 likely to pass without major incidents on the border, but both sides are talking with increased optimism about seemingly concrete progress made in delimitation, with Japarov saying recently that the border might be fully agreed upon by the spring.

That is a significant change in tone.

Tokon Mamytov, a former deputy prime minister and security council secretary in Kyrgyzstan, told RFE/RL that the two governments deserve credit for “overhauling the template” in border talks.

If talks had traditionally become stuck on fixations with different Soviet-era maps — Tajikistan’s preferred boundaries date back to the 1920s while Kyrgyzstan’s are from the 1950s — now there is a “new approach” from the bilateral commission working on delimitation, Mamytov argued.

“They go to the place and look at the border. They ask people who live there about facts on the ground. In this way, the intergovernmental commission is turning agreements between the two heads of states into a reality. Communities living near the border will be able to feel safe again,” Mamytov said.

Is ’90 Percent’ Of The Border Agreed Upon?

It is impossible to discount another Tajik-Kyrgyz flare up along the border.

Nearly 17 months separated the “wars” of May 2021 and September 2022 and, in both cases, the escalation was remarkably rapid.

But few would have expected peace to last so long in the fall of last year.

In the immediate aftermath of the second, deadlier conflict, Kyrgyzstan canceled military training exercises on its territory for the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) — a Russian-led regional military bloc — that were scheduled for October 2022 by explaining that Kyrgyz citizens would not accept the presence of Tajik troops on Kyrgyz soil so soon after a conflict that claimed at least 80 Kyrgyz lives and displaced more than 100,000 people.

At talks involving Japarov, Rahmon, and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Kazakhstan’s capital, Astana, that same month, Rahmon conspicuously failed to greet Japarov.

But a year later and just two weeks after Tashiev aired his frustrations over the direction the talks were taking, both he and his Tajik colleague, Saimumin Yatimov, hailed the signing of Protocol 42. Tashiev said the document “provides a basis for resolving all border issues.”

Yatimov was almost as evocative, noting that the two countries were “aiming to reach a comprehensive and fundamental agreement” as quickly as possible.

There were few details then, but Yatimov was more specific when speaking after further talks on December 2, declaring that the question of a troublesome road linking Vorukh — an enclave of Tajik territory in Kyrgyzstan — and the Tajik border settlement of Khoja Alo was “practically solved.”

Then came the news that the countries had agreed on another 24 kilometers of the border after talks held in the Tajik town of Buston, near the Kyrgyz border.

But it was after talks in Kyrgyzstan’s southern region of Batken on December 12 that the two men claimed their countries had preliminarily agreed on more than 90 percent of their shared border.

That would be a significant achievement.

Only last year, around one-third of the approximately 975-kilometer frontier (Kyrgyz officials claim it is slightly shorter) was still not demarcated.

In an interview with RFE/RL, Dushanbe-based political analyst Sherali Rizoyon said incentives for an agreement were raised by a growing impulse in Central Asia toward regional integration and an uptick in diplomatic activity involving several outside powers.

“Whether on the bilateral or regional level, the problem of state borders prevents the countries of Central Asia benefiting from the new opportunities that are appearing today,” Rizoyon told RFE/RL. “Countries cannot afford to remain hostage to border issues for long — they need to restore mutually beneficial cooperation.”

The ‘Deterrent Component’ And Unclear Russian Role

The word “historic” is overused in Central Asian diplomacy, but it would definitely apply to any agreement between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan on their state border.

Although the dispute did not turn violent until independence, analysts note that Tajik and Kyrgyz opinions on where the border begins and ends have been at odds since 1924, when Tajikistan was still an autonomous territory inside the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic and the territory of modern-day Kyrgyzstan had a similar status inside the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic.

That makes next year the 100th anniversary of the dispute — and as good a time as any to end it.

But if 2023 has proven a year of genuine progress on border talks, it comes on the back of the tremendous human and material price paid by the two poorest countries in Central Asia.

And a big part of that is the increasingly deadly weapons deployed in the last two conflicts, amid a mini-arms race that has seen Kyrgyzstan secure Turkish Bayraktar drones and Tajikistan receiving equivalent weapons from Iran.

Francisco Olmos, a senior researcher in Central Asian affairs at Spain’s GEOPOL 21 Center, noted the “deterrent component” in the Kyrgyz leadership’s boasts about their recently acquired Bayraktar drones while speaking on RFE/RL’s Majlis podcast in November.

The destructive power of the Bayraktar was also in evidence in last year’s clashes, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW), whose investigation published in May 2023 found that forces on both sides had “likely” committed war crimes against civilians.

In an interview with RFE/RL after the release of that report, HRW Senior Crisis and Conflict Researcher Jean-Baptiste Gallopin said the watchdog’s interviews with people on both sides of the border showed that local populations “are tired of these terrifying conflicts and are really yearning for peace.”

At the same time, local communities in Tajikistan’s Sughd Province and Kyrgyzstan’s Batken Province — the scene of most of the violence in recent years — will have their own opinions about what constitutes a good settlement.

Additionally, unrest in Kyrgyzstan over a landmark border agreement reached with Uzbekistan early this year suggests that selling a border agreement to the population is not always easy.

Yet another unknown is Russia, whose failure to prevent large-scale conflict between two of its military allies drew criticism of a Kremlin bogged down in its invasion of Ukraine. Also criticized was the CSTO — a security bloc sometimes framed as Moscow’s answer to NATO.

That trilateral meeting in October 2022 in Astana was more welcomed by Japarov — who unsuccessfully requested Putin’s intervention — than Rahmon, who later launched a tirade focused on Moscow’s shortcomings as a strategic partner.

Putin said after the talks that Russia had offered to retrieve some of its own archival Soviet-era maps to help resolve the dispute.

Since then, Russia has done almost nothing to suggest it is playing a mediatory role.

But on September 20, the Russian Foreign Ministry waded into the diplomatic fallout over Tashiev’s comments, warning against “harsh declarations” that it said could reverse the progress made on the border by the two countries.

“It should be remembered that armed conflicts in the post-Soviet space are beneficial primarily to the collective West, which has its own tendentious goals that have nothing to do with the real interests of Central Asian countries,” the ministry said.

Source: RFERL

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Infighting over the succession and growing frustration in the regions could shatter the stability that the Tajik president has been building for so many years.

Next year will mark thirty years of Emomali Rahmon’s presidency in Tajikistan, now the only country in Central Asia that has not seen a change of leadership since the early 1990s. Unsurprisingly, there have been rumors of an imminent transition of power for a decade.

The name of the successor is no secret: it’s Rahmon’s son, thirty-six-year-old Rustam Emomali. But there is no consensus within the president’s large family over the succession. Some of the president’s other children have their own ambitions to run the country, which could upset plans for the transition.

President Rahmon is seventy-one years old, and has reportedly suffered numerous health issues. Arrangements for the transition have long been in place, but events keep getting in the way of its implementation: first the pandemic and its economic fallout, and then the street protests in neighboring Kazakhstan in January 2022, which frightened the Tajik leader and persuaded him it was not a good time to step down. Even Turkmenistan has seen a power transition in recent years. Now Tajikistan is expected to implement its own in 2024.

Rustam has already headed a number of government agencies. Since 2017, he has been mayor of Dushanbe: a post he has combined since 2020 with that of speaker of the upper house of parliament, to whom power would automatically pass if the current president were to step down early.

His supporters argue that as the capital’s mayor, he has improved the city, supported youth initiatives, and started to form his own team of young technocrats. Some are counting on him to carry out at least limited reforms once he is in power, such as those seen in neighboring Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.

Not everyone believes Rustam is ready to take over, however. The future president is an unknown quantity for most Tajiks. All of his public appearances are prerecorded and accompanied by information read out by the broadcaster, meaning that people have not even heard him speak. His nickname on social media is “the great mute.”

More worryingly, the heir apparent has reportedly shot and wounded two people: his own uncle in 2008, and—just last year—the head of the State Committee for National Security, Saimumin Yatimov, supposedly for refusing to carry out orders.

There are those within the presidential family who do not want to see Rustam succeed his father because they fear losing prestigious posts in government and business. They are indignant that there are no relatives within the team he is building. The current president cannot possibly keep everyone happy, and this could threaten the transition, as ambitious clan members prepare to battle it out for the top job in order to retain their privileges.

Rahmon has seven daughters and two sons. The most ambitious of them is generally considered to be the second daughter Ozoda, who has headed up the presidential administration since 2016. She is very experienced, works well with her staff, and has the trust of the security services. Unsurprisingly, given the alleged shooting incident, there is no love lost between Rustam and the country’s main security official Yatimov, who has reportedly been paving the way for Ozoda’s candidacy. In addition, her husband Jamoliddin Nuraliev is also considered a very influential figure, having been deputy chair of the country’s central bank for over seven years.

Another contender for the presidency could be Rahmon’s fifth daughter, Ruhshona, a seasoned diplomat who is well versed in Tajikistan’s political affairs. Her husband is the influential oligarch Shamsullo Sohibov, who made his fortune thanks to his family connection to the president. Together with his brothers, he controls entire sectors of the economy, including transport, media, and banking. Change at the top could deprive the Sohibov clan of both influence and money, so Ruhshona and her husband may well throw their hats into the ring.

They might get the backing of Rahmon’s other children, who also control various sectors of the economy, including air travel (the third daughter, Tahmina) and pharmacies (the fourth daughter, Parvina). There are also plenty of Rahmon’s more distant relatives who owe their fortunes to the president and fear losing their positions under his successor.

Rahmon has relied on the loyalty of various relatives to ensure the stable functioning of his regime. But overly vociferous squabbles within the family could destabilize the situation, and for precisely this reason, Rahmon has tried to temper their ambition. Ruhshona, for example, was sent to the UK as Tajik ambassador to stop her from interfering in the plans for the transition. Her oligarch husband went with her.

Nor is the heir apparent himself outside the fray. There is evidence that Rustam was involved in leaking information to the media about his sister Ozoda’s alleged affair with her driver: something that, in patriarchal Tajikistan, caused serious damage to her reputation. There are also rumors that Ozoda’s main ally Yatimov will be retired from his post as head of the security services and replaced with a close friend of Rustam, Shohruh Saidov.

Right now, international circumstances are conducive to a swift transition. Tajikistan’s relations with its trickiest neighbors, Afghanistan and Kyrgyzstan, are improving. While the Taliban has yet to be recognized as the legitimate Afghan government by Dushanbe, both sides agreed to strengthen economic ties during the first visit to Tajikistan by a delegation from the radical Islamist movement in March this year. Meanwhile, the Tajik government has pledged to resolve the border dispute with Kyrgyzstan—an issue that has led to several armed clashes in the last three years—by spring 2024. Rahmon is clearly trying to hand over a stable country to his son.

The situation at home, however, is more complicated. There is also considerable opposition to Rustam’s candidacy among the regional elites, who have long supported Rahmon in exchange for access to state resources, and are now seeing many of the most lucrative cash flows appropriated by the presidential family. A transition of power could be an opportune moment to express their displeasure.

Events in Gorno-Badakhshan in spring 2022 were a stark warning of the dangers of that displeasure. After the civil war that ravaged the country in the early 1990s, many of its field commanders settled in the region. Over time, they became informal leaders of the local communities, helping to solve problems that the central government was ignoring, sometimes strong-arming local officials into making the required decision. Rahmon ordered several security operations to rid Gorno-Badakhshan of this dual power system, only for it to reemerge further down the line.

Last spring, protests erupted there after a local man was killed by law enforcement officers. The unrest lasted for several months until Rahmon crushed it by force. Many of the activists were killed or imprisoned, while others fled the country, and the region was brought back under Dushanbe’s control. But the anger simmering in the region could boil over again at the first sign of conflict.

For now, the other regions remain loyal to the regime, but that could change after the power transition if the local elites feel they are not getting sufficient state resources.

By directing all the streams of income and control of the country to his own relatives, Rahmon has painted himself into a corner. Infighting over the succession and growing frustration in the regions could shatter the stability that the president has been building for so many years. Power transitions rarely go to plan in Central Asia, and Tajikistan may be no exception.

Source

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A year ago Germany deported to Tajikistan an activist from that country’s exiled opposition movement who had been living in Dortmund since 2009. What happened next is a shocking example of what can occur when Germany fails to uphold safeguards in its increased efforts to deport unsuccessful asylum seekers. The Bundestag this month gave police greater powers to carry out deportations.

The activist, Abdullohi Shamsiddin, 33, was deported to Tajikistan on January 18 2023. He was detained on arrival by the security services. Two months later he was convicted of trying to overthrow the constitution and jailed for seven years. No credible evidence was presented in an unfair trial.

Tajikistan, a predominantly Musim country of 9.7m people in Central Asia is ruled by one the world’s longest serving autocrats. President Emomali Rahmon has been in power since 1992. He has led a severe crackdown on human rights, especially since 2015, when the main opposition party, the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT) and Group 24, another opposition group, were banned. The European Parliament this month expressed concern over “state repression against independent media” in the country.

Since 2021 the government has brutally suppressed protests in the region of Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast, leading to many deaths.

The German government acknowledged the human rights crisis in Tajikistan last year in response to a parliamentary question on Shamsiddin’s case. “Basic freedoms for citizens, especially freedom of speech and freedom of religion are severely restricted in Tajikistan” it said. Members of the IRPT are regularly “jailed and given long prison terms”, the government added.

Shamsiddin’s father, a refugee in Germany, is a senior IRPT member. This made Shamsiddin’s forced return a particularly precious gift for Tajikistan’s authoritarian leaders.

After his detention Shamsiddin was held for over two months in a darkened isolation cell and has been mistreated, according to family members. He has lost weight and has been denied medical care. When a German embassy official visited him, eight prison guards were present.

Dozens of his friends and relatives in Tajikistan have been questioned based on contacts the Tajik authorities retrieved from Shamsiddin’s mobile phone, a device they obtained because German police officials gave it to them. A cousin of Shamsiddin, Saidumar Saidov was  jailed last July for six years for a short social media post about Shamsiddin’s case.

Shamsiddin should never have been deported because international law, including multiple treaties to which Germany is bound, prohibits “refoulement”, returning a person to a country where they are at risk of torture or cruel or inhumane treatment.

Shamsiddin, who is married and has two small children, made three unsuccessful asylum applications in Germany. His case is complex. He changed his name after arriving in Germany and has several convictions. Apparently for these reasons local authorities and courts chose not to accept experts on Tajikistan who said it was highly likely he would be detained and mistreated if returned.

German authorities were aware of Shamsiddin’s true identity before he was deported, as officials from the Tajik embassy in Berlin had confirmed this in June 2022. Shamsiddin’s wife, a Tajik citizen, has refugee status in the European Union.

Germany’s decision to deport Shamsiddin had severe consequences as Tajikistan is infamous for pursuing its opponents abroad. Many opposition supporters moved abroad after the crackdown in 2015.

In 2016 HRW published findings pointing to Dushanbe’s strategy of assaulting or kidnapping activists living abroad or seeking their deportation. Since then, deportations to Tajikistan of opposition figures have occurred from many countries including Austria as well as Germany.

The Tajik government regularly interrogates Tajikistan-based relatives of exiled activists, to pressure those activists to halt their campaigns. Last September a group of Tajik activists protested in Berlin at the visit there of president Rahmon. In the following days authorities in Tajikistan questioned around 50 relatives of the protesters in Berlin, detaining some for several days.

Several members of the Bundestag are following Shamsiddin’s case. The German government should urge Tajikistan to end its human rights violations, to release Shamsiddin and allow him to leave the country. Tajikistan is currently seeking closer ties with Europe, so Germany has leverage in its negotiations with Dushanbe, if it is willing to use it.

Berlin should also investigate how Shamsiddin was deported to face a known risk of torture or inhuman treatment, to ensure such incidents do not happen again.

This is urgent. In November another Tajik opposition activist was deported from Germany. Bilal Qurbanaliev was one of the protesters against Rahmon last September. He is now in detention in  Tajikistan. And in December a Tajik man was arrested in Germany on terrorism charges. The allegations are serious and should be investigated. But he should not be deported to Tajikistan if there is a danger he could face torture there.

Source: Human Rights Watch

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President Kassym-Joomart Tokayev approved the new government of Kazakhstan under the leadership of Olzhas Bektenov. The names of the ministers were published on primeminister.kz.

Most of the ministers remained from the old government.

Four ministers were replaced: Nurlan Baibazarov was appointed Deputy Prime Minister – Minister of National Economy instead of Alibek Kuantyrov, Madi Takiyev became Minister of Finance instead of Erulan Zhamaubaev, Akmaral Alnazarova was appointed Minister of Healthcare instead of Azhar Giniyat, and Chingis Arinov became the new Minister for Emergency Situations instead of Syrym Shariphanov.

Members of the government who remained in their positions included First Deputy Prime Minister Roman Sklyar, Minister of Foreign Affairs Murat Nurtleu, Chief of Staff of the Government Galymzhan Koishybayev, Deputy Prime Minister Tamara Duisenova, Deputy Prime Minister Serik Zhumangarin, Minister of Defense Ruslan Zhaksylykov, Minister of Internal Affairs Yerzhan Sadenov, Minister of Justice Azamat Yeskarayev, Minister of Energy Almassadam Satkaliyev, Minister of Agriculture Aidarbek Saparov, Minister of Digital Development, Innovation and Aerospace Industry Bagdat Mussin, Minister of Education Gani Beisembayev, Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources Yerlan Nyssanbayev, Minister of Science and Higher Education Sayasat Nurbek, Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation Nurzhan Nurzhigitov, Minister of Culture and Information Aida Balayeva, Minister of Tourism and Sports Yermek Marzhikpayev, Minister of Transport Marat Karabayev, Minister of Labour and Social Protection of the Population Svetlana Zhakupova, Minister of Industry and Construction Kanat Sharlapaev, and Minister of Trade and Integration Arman Shakkaliyev.

There are currently 26 members of the government. The composition was renewed for 16%. There are six deputy prime ministers left. 16% remained women.

President Kassym-Joomart Tokayev decided to resign the government of Kazakhstan on February 5. The duties of the Prime Minister of Kazakhstan were temporarily assigned to Roman Sklyar. The next day, the president said the government’s resignation was aimed at providing new impetus and meeting public expectations. In addition, the president promised that the new government will use new approaches.

The head of the Presidential Administration of Kazakhstan, Olzhas Bektenov, headed the government of Kazakhstan on February 6. His candidacy was proposed by the Amanat party, it was supported by the president, the majority of factions of political parties in the Parliament agreed to the appointment. Olzhas Bektenov replaced Alikhan Smailov, who had headed the Cabinet of Ministers since January 2022.

Source: Akipress

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In May 2022, tens of ethnic Pamiri protesters were killed by security forces as demonstrations were violently suppressed and an “anti-terrorist operation” was launched in the east of the country. Activists, local leaders, journalists and bloggers were arrested and sentenced in unfair trials. Many reported being tortured. Access to information, including through the media and internet, remained heavily restricted. Domestic violence remained widespread with victims rarely securing justice or support. Afghan refugees continued to be detained and deported.

Tajikistan’s economic and political life continued to be tightly controlled by the president, in the 30th year of his rule, and his family. Over 100 people, including dozens of civilians, were killed and homes, schools and markets destroyed during cross border clashes between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan in September. In May, following months of targeted repression by the central government, longstanding tensions in the eastern Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast (GBAO) between these authorities and the Pamiris, a small, unrecognized ethnic minority belonging to the Shia Islam Ismaili community, flared into new protests. These were brutally suppressed by the authorities, who launched an “anti-terrorist operation” on 18 May during which tens of Pamiris were killed over several weeks. Over 200 people were arrested.

Pamiri protesters were killed by security forces in May and June 2022, as demonstrations were violently suppressed and an “anti-terrorist operation” was launched in the east of the country. Activists, local leaders, journalists and bloggers were arrested and sentenced in unfair trials. Many reported being tortured.

The official government figure in May for those killed in the “anti-terrorist operation” in the GBAO was originally 21, although unofficial sources reported more than double that number. The circumstances of many deaths, in the absence of independent reporting from Tajikistan, prompted allegations of extrajudicial executions. Prominent activists, informal local leaders, poets, religious leaders and journalists were arbitrarily targeted for arrest. Several prominent members of the Pamiri diaspora in Russia were abducted before resurfacing in custody in Tajikistan. By the end of the year, most of those arrested had been sentenced to long prison terms in unfair trials, typically for purported membership of a criminal organization and seeking to overthrow the constitutional order. The fate and whereabouts of some of those arrested remained unknown, prompting fears that they had been forcibly disappeared.

The crackdown on prominent Pamiri influencers, local leaders and activists was accompanied by a broader assault on the cultural heritage of Pamiris. Following the May-June unrest, the authorities shut down and confiscated the property of multiple local organizations linked to the Aga Khan Development Network working in the fields of education, economic development and religious instruction.

Freedom of expression remained severely curtailed. The few remaining independent media outlets, human rights defenders and bloggers were heavily targeted in the crackdown that followed the GBAO protests. On 17 May, Mullorajab Yusufi and Anushervon Aripov, journalists working for Radio Free Europe’s Tajik service and regional news outlet Current Time, were severely beaten by unknown assailants in the capital, Dushanbe, shortly after interviewing the well-known Pamiri journalist and human rights activist Ulfatkhonim Mamadshoeva about events in the GBAO. The next day Ulfatkhonim Mamadshoeva was herself arrested and accused of “publicly calling for the overthrow of the constitutional order”. In December, she was sentenced to 21 years’ imprisonment following a closed, unfair trial. Following her arrest, the authorities ordered Asia-Plus, the privately owned news agency for which she reported, to cease covering events in the GBAO. Other outlets reported similar coercion. On 19 May, Pamiri blogger and journalist Khushruz Jumayev (known online as Khush Gulyam) was arrested. He was sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment in December on opaque charges relating to the May events in the GBAO. Other activists who faced unfair trials during the year included around a dozen members of Commission 44, an independent group of lawyers and human rights defenders established to investigate the November 2021 killing of an activist that sparked protests in the GBAO.

Shaftolu Bekdavlatov and Khujamri Pirmamadov were sentenced to 18 years’ imprisonment each on charges of organizing a criminal group and receiving financial assistance from abroad. The head of the Pamiri Lawyers’ Association, Manuchehr Kholiknazarov, was sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment on 9 December. Journalists and bloggers also faced prosecutions for critical reporting unrelated to the GBAO. On 15 June, two journalists and collaborators who reported widely on economic and social rights violations, Daler Imomali and Avazmad Gurbatov (also known as Abdullo Gurbati), were arrested shortly after reporting on the demolition of homes in Dushanbe. Avazmad Gurbatov was sentenced on 4 October to seven-and-a-half years’ imprisonment in a closed trial on trumped-up charges of assaulting a police officer and membership of the arbitrarily banned political organization Group 24. In a separate trial two weeks later, Daler Imomali was sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment, on equally far-fetched charges of tax evasion, disseminating false information and purported membership of Group 24. The internet was completely shut down for the first few months of the year in the GBAO and only intermittently and partially restored during the rest of the year. Tight restrictions remained in place throughout the country.

Torture and other ill-treatment remained widespread both as a means of intimidation and extracting confessions. Prisoners continued to report abuse and neglect, including beatings, lack of access to food and water and cold and wet conditions within the cells. While in pretrial detention following his arrest in July, Abdusattor Pirmuhammadzoda, a blogger who had been fired from a state radio broadcaster for criticizing the government in 2020, managed to smuggle out a letter in which he described being subjected to severe beatings, electric shocks and psychological torture, including threats against his family, in order to secure a confession. He was sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment in November. In June, while trying to attend a concert in a public park in Dushanbe, Elobat Oghalykova was arrested for wearing a black dress in mourning for the death of one of her sons – a traditional practice that was banned in 2017. She was beaten at Spitamen District Police station and required hospitalization. When she filed a complaint, she was threatened with 15 days’ detention for disobeying a police officer.

According to multiple indicators published during the year, including the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report, Tajikistan’s gender gap was the highest of all Central Asian countries and one of the highest globally. According to a survey published by the EU-UN Spotlight Initiative in June, 77.3% of respondents considered violence against women to be prevalent in Tajikistan and 34% of respondents (across both genders) believed it was justifiable to beat a partner who refused to obey. The accompanying report highlighted many longstanding problems: the weak legal framework; the limited range and inadequate funding of protection services; and stereotypical attitudes among public service providers, including law enforcement agencies. A draft criminal code criminalizing domestic violence, put before parliament in 2021, had not been passed by the end of the year.

In August, UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, raised grave concerns about the continued detention and deportation of Afghan refugees. The agency documented dozens of cases in August and September alone. Members of the nearly 14,000-strong Afghan refugee community reported that the forced expulsions were taking place without any procedure or obvious justification.

Source: Amnesty International

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Just in September this year, ten “distinguished” people in Tajikistan have been awarded general ranks.

The decree on conferring general ranks was signed by the country’s president, Emomali Rahmon, on September 7^th. According to this decree, there are now three more generals in the Agency for State Financial Control and Anti-Corruption. The rank of Major General of Justice was awarded to the head of the Finance and Economic Department, Fazliddin Khodjazoda, the head of the Special Operations Department, Abdurakhmon Davlatzoda, and the head of the Agency for GBAO, Zoir Gafurzoda.

The rank of Major General of Justice was also conferred on Ikrom Zoirzoda, the military prosecutor and Deputy Attorney General of Tajikistan.

Four colonels have been promoted to the rank of major general in the Ministry of Defense: Hussein Shokirzoda, the commander of the mobile forces of the country’s armed forces; Aminjon Amonullozoda, the military commissioner for cities and districts of republican subordination; Davlatsho Mirzozoda, the military commissioner for the Sughd region; and Abdulmumin Davlatzoda, the first deputy chairman of the Central Committee of the Public Organization for Assistance to Defense (formerly DOSAAF).

In the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the rank of general was conferred upon the head of the department for combating illegal drug trafficking, Bakhtiyor Nazarzoda, and the head of the department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Khatlon region, Fayzullo Nozimzoda.

Annually, on the eve of important state holidays such as Tajikistan’s Independence Day, representatives of the law enforcement and security agencies are awarded the highest officer ranks, including that of major general.

The exact number of generals in Tajikistan is currently unknown. In the past, both domestic and international press portrayed Tajikistan as a country where a significant number of generals emerged in a relatively short period of time.

The authorities of Tajikistan view the conferral of these ranks as “recognition of distinguished service.” However, opposition representatives criticize the government for awarding the title of general not based on specific merits but rather symbolically, as a result of officials’ loyalty to the regime. They claim that, in some cases, some generals have not even undergone mandatory military service.

Source : Radio Liberty

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Frankfurt (18/12 – 14)

That there are remarkable advantages in being ignored is not generally recognized. Central Asian countries, historically under the thumb of Moscow, all through the 70+ years of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, were more or less cut off from the outside world. There was little trade or other exchange.

The USSR was in fact a grab-bag of ethnicities, religions and languages, controlled with an iron fist by Stalin and afterwards with unbroken dominance through subsequent regimes.

Under Soviet management, Central Asia had stayed poor and ignored; it had not developed any hydrocarbon resources to lure western and European petro-buccaneers of the transatlantic Empire. With the sudden collapse of the USSR, renewed interest in the jigsaw puzzle of the various “-stans” arose in the west, partly in order to sniff out mineral resources of potential value – Kazakhstan has oil – but also in an effort to “contain” the newly-established “Russian Federation”, still a prickly opponent armed with ICBMs, and with tempting land and mineral resources. Western hegemony has steadily crept into Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, all Muslim, Turkic-speaking nations relieved to finally slip away from Russian domination.

“Hope Springs Eternal”, and there are western political figures and think-tankers who propose to bust up the Russian Federation into smaller, more malleable nations, docile ones easier to raid for tasty resources (such as was documented after 1991, when the Russian oligarchs conspired with western companies to steal everything that wasn’t nailed down). That the Russians themselves might not acquiesce in seeing their nation broken up and exploited is outrageous to the west, which considers the world its oyster (evidence: cheap extraction of resources from Africa & Latin America, with little profit for those who live there, with unbroken western hegemony).

The charming fantasy of breaking Russian military potential would allow Washington to fulfill its dreamy dream of “total spectrum dominance” (actual Pentagon term – not made up), having all but gutted the European economy through its quixotic Ukrainian adventure: destruction of the Nordstream 2 pipeline cut off the cheap Russian gas driving West European industry and consumer markets. Meanwhile, a sizable American military continues to occupy Germany, the UK and Japan.

The USA exacts tribute from its vassals through a negative trade balance and the relentless sale of Treasury Bonds, financial instruments whose intrinsic value becomes ever more questionable, and overpriced armaments.

With the Russians embroiled in the Ukrainian “Special Military Operation”, ostensibly to protect Russian-speaking areas under attack since 2014 by neo-Nazis, NATO saw an opportunity to beguile Central Asia, following the peaceful lead of the People’s Republic of China, whose “Belt & Road Initiative” has already made inroads, first in primitive Tajikistan and considerably more developed Kazakhstan.

China has also built the world’s longest oil pipeline, stretching from its oil fields in Kazakhstan over the Tien Shan mountain range separating it from Central Asia.

Now, the Americans, working through NATO and its usual-suspect NGOs, are attempting to tempt the Central Asian republics away from Russia, hoping that the traditional resentment of Soviet abuse and exploitation will draw them toward alliances with the west.

An example of Russian mistreatment: its nuclear weapons tests and space launches are being carried out in Kazakhstan.

One Andrei Serenko, Director of the Analytical Centre of the Russian Society of Political Scientists and head of the Centre for the Study of Afghan Politics, has warned that a resurgent terror movement, originating in brutal Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, poses threats to countries of Central Asia, primarily to Tajikistan. The Jamaat Ansarullah movement (also known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Tajikistan, or TTT, or the “Tajik Taliban”), has begun to train suicide bombers, consisting mainly of candidates from desperately-poor Tajikistan.

Jamaat Ansarullah is said to be based in the Afghan province of Badakhshan, bordering Tajikistan. In the past six months, according to Serenko, it has significantly expanded its ranks.

“If earlier the number of militants in this group was in the dozens, now it is in the hundreds,” wrote Serenko.

“Jamaat Ansarullah was able to solve problems with its financing, as well as with weapons—its militants gained access to modern American and NATO armaments left in Afghanistan in August 2021.” That was when the US and its allies, tails between their legs, ignominiously fled from Afghanistan, after a twenty-year slaughter and a failed twenty-one trillion dollar military adventure.

The Jamaat Ansarullah suicide bombers also originate from other post-Soviet countries; their training takes place in a special madrassa located in Nusay District (Darwaz-i-Bala) of Badakhshan Province.

Alexander Bortnikov, Director of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), has stated that “a “belt of instability” is being created on the “southern borders of the CIS”; Bortnikov reported that militants were being recruited from international terrorist organizations operating in Iraq, Syria and a number of other Asian and African countries, and were being transferred to northern Afghanistan.

A former Afghan spy chief claims that the Taliban regime now ruling Afghanistan is ambitiously exploring options to obtain tactical nuclear weapons.

Now we are talking. Suicide bombers are like mosquitoes in western society: they can cause damage but a SWAT team can just swat them away. Nuclear weaponry (including a simple-to-build “dirty bomb”) are another matter altogether. Even a small tactical nuke can take out a major part of a city – and drive the rest of the population to panic, thus ruining social cohesion and daily routines.

“The terrorists’ priority goal is to seize power in the countries of Central Asia, primarily in Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, and include them in the so-called ‘global caliphate’,” Bortnikov added, alleging that “this is being done with the active participation of American and British intelligence services.”

This would be no surprise, considering how the western military adventurers behaved in Iraq, Libya and Syria: sponsor, fund, then destroy. Rinse & repeat.

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The first step to solving a problem is admitting that it exists.

Telecommunications regulators in Tajikistan have taken a surprising step in that direction by reportedly admitting this week that a staggering 95 percent of the country’s territory is covered by only outdated 2G mobile connections.

This situation is in no small part due to the State Communications Service itself. In addition to regulating the sector, the service and the people running it are also major market players, albeit in highly nebulous ways that would be unthinkable almost anywhere else in the world.

Last weekend, the regulator announced that it is allowing two mobile telecommunications operators, MegaFon Tajikistan and Tcell, to source internet data through international channels instead of relying, as all ISPs are now required to do, on a state-run data spigot called the Unified Electronic Communications Switching Center, or EKTs in its commonly deployed Russian-language acronym. 

EKTs is operated by joint-stock phone and internet company Tojiktelecom, which is in turn run by the State Communications Service, a body that has been long run by a relative by marriage of President Emomali Rahmon. This in effect has made Tojiktelecom a for-profit monopoly run by a government service designed in theory to protect consumer interests. 

The ostensible purpose of the EKTs is to grant the state powers to fully vet internet traffic, for security reasons, among other things. The most noticeable impact of this arrangement, however, is that Tajikistan has some of the worst internet speeds in the world. The Amsterdam-headquartered company that operates the Beeline brand and Sweden-based mobile phone company TeliaSonera have both pulled out of Tajikistan amid difficulties navigating a market riddled with corruption and arbitrary policy-making. 

It is unclear what has prompted the telecoms regulator to ease the current monopolistic set-up. 

It is known that at least some parts of the ruling family are frustrated with the current situation. In January 2022, President Rahmon’s son and presumed successor-in-waiting, Rustam Emomali, complained about the quality of service provided by mobile companies. Emomali was especially exercised by what he said was the discrepancy between the quality of service advertised and what was actually provided.

Even Rahmon had grounds for being annoyed. A source at one mobile telecommunications company last year told Eurasianet, on condition of anonymity, that they and industry peers were ordered to work on improving the quality of their service after an incident, also in January 2022, in which Rahmon experienced trouble staying online during a Collective Security Treaty Organization virtual summit. Other participants in that online video call included Russian President Vladimir Putin and Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. 

“During the meeting, his connection dropped out about seven to 10 times. The president was angered by the quality of the internet and reprimanded the head of the communications service,” the source told Eurasianet.

But that reprimand was evidently not sufficient to unseat that official, Beg Sabur, who is related to Rahmon by marriage, or bring about any significant change. While there has been a marginal improvement in internet speeds since December 2022, the overall trajectory remains dispiriting. 

Source: EurasiaNet

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Asliddin Sherzamonov, an activist from Tajikistan, strongly believes that the United Nations (UN) should assess the actions of the Central Asian country’s security forces during the events of 2021 and 2022 in the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region (GBAO). Speaking at the UN session on minorities held in Geneva on December 1, Asliddin said that an independent international commission should be established to evaluate the activities of Tajikistan’s security forces.

In the operations carried out by security forces in 2021 in Roshtkala and Khorog, three people died. In another operations in the spring of 2022 by the security forces, in Rushan and Khorog, at least 34 people lost their lives. According to the Tajikistan Prosecutor General’s Office, 29 people were reported as victims.

During the Tajikistan security forces’ operations in 2021, three people died in Roshtkal and Khorog. In another security forces’ operations in the spring of 2022, at least 34 people died in Rushan and Khorog.

The President of Tajikistan referred to them as members of criminal groups, admitting that he personally gave the order to conduct the operation. Relatives of the deceased are convinced that they were unarmed and peaceful individuals who took to the streets to express their disagreement and protest the actions of the authorities.

Asliddin Sherzamonov, addressing the UN, pointed out that a hundred people were wounded in the events occurring in GBAO. Dozens of others were arrested in Tajikistan and Russia and later, through closed-door court decisions, sentenced to long years behind bars. According to him, “more than two thousand people fled abroad.”

According to the Tajik activist, since 2008, Pamiris in GBAO have faced repression, their deaths are not investigated, and the detained suffer from ruthless treatment. Among the detainees, there are many human rights defenders, activists, leaders of civil society, and journalists. “Non-governmental organizations dealing with human rights, gender equality, education, and economic development have been forced to cease their activities. The once active civil society in GBAO is now in fear and cannot speak out about the authorities’ violations.”

In August 2023, the authorities in Tajikistan acknowledged the closure of five non-governmental organizations in GBAO. According to them, these structures were “linked to criminal groups”. Several other organizations had to their names.

Asliddin Sherzamonov believes that the authorities in Tajikistan should immediately “release all leaders of civil society, ensure economic growth in GBAO and recognize the Pamiris as a separate minority with the right to full freedom.”

In the past year, many human rights organizations and Western countries have criticized the actions of the authorities in Tajikistan regarding the Pamiris. Amnesty International stated that the Tajikistan authorities must respect the rights of all residents of Tajikistan and particularly, cease immediate repression against Pamiri activists and other dissenters.

Fernand de Varen, the UN Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues, also stated in October that “harsh measures were applied to protesters in the events of 2021 and 2022 in GBAO, and these events should undergo an independent and fair investigation.”

Authorities in Tajikistan are confident that the security forces’ operations were necessary to ensure safety and detain criminals acting against the interests of society and the GBAO leadership. The opposition is convinced that the purpose of the repression is to combat dissent and disagreement.

GBAO is the largest region in Tajikistan, with a population of around 250,000 people. The majority of the population adheres to Ismailism, led by Aga Khan IV. Most of the population speaks local languages known as “Pamiri languages.”

Source : Radio Free Europe

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