January 1, 2004
The new international role that Tajikistan has played since joining the U.S.-led global campaign against terrorism has not substantially changed the government's authoritarian nature. The government severely limits political pluralism, the media, and religious freedom. A civil war ended in 1997, and in 2000 the government formally agreed to a power-sharing arrangement with the United Tajik Opposition. Many observers believe this arrangement has given overwhelming power to the government of President Emomali Rakhmonov, which in the past two years has eliminated several of its rivals through criminal prosecutions. These developments have taken place against a backdrop of widespread poverty and an extremely rapid increase in HIV prevalence.
- Elections
- Press Freedom
- Political Opposition
- Religious Freedom
- Other Issues
- Key International Actors
Elections
Tajikistan has a long and consistently poor record of election fraud and manipulation. After presidential and parliamentary elections in 1999 and 2000, respectively, which were neither free nor fair, the government in 2003 initiated a constitutional referendum to allow the incumbent president to seek a second seven-year term of office. Due to the absence of measures for ensuring transparency in the vote counting and tabulation process, the Organization for Security and Cooperation (OSCE) did not monitor the referendum, which took place on June 22, 2003. The unusually high voter turnout of 96 percent and the 93 percent approval rate strongly suggest the process was manipulated
Press Freedom
During the civil war, Tajikistan was for a time considered one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists, with sixty-five journalists killed from 1992-97. The country was also notorious for censorship of the media. Conditions have improved in a few respects: there are now several privately-run radio stations, for example, and organizers have been able to hold a series of media seminars with foreign journalists. But the government continues to chill freedom of expression, mainly through harassment of journalists by police and sometimes through crude government intervention.
In 2002, a mayor's deputy in southern Tajikistan burst into the offices of the independent TV station Kurgan-Tyube and seized tapes of a report on the town's economic and social problems. The next day, the mayor threatened to close the station if he was not allowed to censor its programs. In 2003, two months before the referendum, the authorities blocked access to an opposition news website, tajikistantimes.ru, run from outside the country. Internet users inside Tajikistan have been unable to access the site since that time. In July 2003, in a rare departure from the pattern of impunity for attacks on journalists, two members of a criminal group who allegedly killed journalists Muhidin Olimpur and Victor Nikulin in 1995 and 1996, respectively, were sentenced to 15 and 22 years in a maximum-security prison.
Political Opposition
Although the opposition parties that were incorporated into the government through the power-sharing arrangement support official policy on almost all points, the authorities have continued to prosecute real and alleged opponents both inside and outside the country. On May 31, 2003 Shamsudin Shamsudinov, deputy chairman of Islamic Renaissance Party, was detained and charged with crimes against the state. Shamsudinov is being held as the investigation continues. On June 21, 2003 Yakub Salimov, a former minister of interior, was detained by Moscow police at the request of the Tajikistan procuracy; he is being held on charges of conspiracy against the president. On August 13, 2003 Russian police, in response to a similar request from Tajikistan authorities, detained Khabibullo Nasrulloev, a former member of the Tajikistan government, and his son, Muhammad Nasrulloev; both have lived in Russia since 1997. They face charges of crimes against the state and murder. Both of them have applied to Russian authorities for political asylum.
Religious Freedom
Following a trend throughout Central Asia, the Tajik government jeopardizes freedom of religion by tightening control over traditional religions as well as new religious communities. The authorities claim that unregistered Muslim places of worship cannot be regarded as mosques and are operating illegally. The authorities have requested that leaders of unregistered mosques not use loudspeakers for the call to prayer. The government also has proposed a series of amendments to the law on religion, under which individual religious communities would need to present a list of 100 members to qualify for registration. As a result, smaller religious communities would not be able to function.
Other Issues
Tajikistan remains a major channel for drug trafficking to Russia and Europe. In the first seven months of 2003 alone, law enforcement agencies confiscated four tons of heroin and opium, a seizure rate almost twenty times that of neighboring Kazakhstan. Concerning the related problem of proliferation of HIV/AIDS in the country it should be noted that the relatively small official number of HIV-positive people probably disguises the true extent of the problem and certainly does not adequately convey the extremely rapid growth of the number of registered HIV-positive persons during the last three years. The spread of HIV is fuelled by human rights violations, including police abuse of injecting drug users and sex workers, lack of due process as well as harassment and stigmatization.
Key International Actors
Long a foreign policy backwater for the United States and the European Union, Tajikistan's position as a frontline state in the U.S.-led global campaign against terrorism meant more international attention and assistance.
The first official visits of President Rakhmonov to the United States and France in December 2002 were followed by multi-million dollar humanitarian assistance packages and new international initiatives to promote poverty reduction. At the Tajikistan Consultative Group Meeting in May 2003, donors pledged some $900 million over three years, including $200 million in humanitarian assistance, for poverty-focused investment (Tajikistan's GDP in 2002 was $1.2 billion). Some two-thirds of the total was pledged in grants. USAID allotted $3.5 million for 2003 fiscal year for a Democracy and Media Program.
Unfortunately none of these grants have been directly conditioned on specific government steps to improve the human rights situation. According to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, widespread poverty and dependency on aluminum and cotton production in turn make the economy highly dependent on international trade and grants from the international community. This dependency, coupled with the government's intent to establish and maintain strategic relations with the United States and Europe, give the international community increased leverage, should it choose to use it, for insisting on human rights reforms.
Related Material
More on Human Rights in Tajikistan
Country Page
HRW World Report 2004
Report, January 26, 2004