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

The post Mary Lawlor, UN Criticises Tajikistan Dissolution of 700 NGOs appeared first on Ankara Haftalik.

Tajikistan’s existential project to build the colossal 335-meter-high Roghun hydropower dam is proceeding apace, but costs are spiraling, and to a level that is making it hard to see where the government is going to find the funds needed to finish the work.

To complicate matters for Dushanbe, this is happening against the backdrop of calls from environmental watchdogs for international development lenders to pause the allocation of any future funds to Tajikistan pending a fresh assessment of the project.

The extent of the budget overshoot is striking.

In a press conference on February 16, Finance Minister Faiziddin Kahhorzoda revealed that the government spent 5.2 billion somoni ($475 million) on construction work at Roghun in 2023. That was 2.7 billion somoni more than had been planned, he said.

The projected government spend for this year, meanwhile, is 5 billion somoni. It is projected that 2.2 billion somoni can be solicited from foreign-based parties, Kahhorzoda said.

When work on Roghun, a project that was in its origins the brainchild of Soviet engineers, resumed in earnest in 2008, the estimate for the overall cost stood at $3 billion.

This climbed upward through the years.

In 2016, officials threw around the figure of $3.9 billion. In mid-2022, the Energy Ministry announced $5 billion would be needed for full project implementation. 

On February 1, Energy Minister Daler Juma offered a new forecast: $6.2 billion. That is high, although admittedly quite a bit short of the $8 billion prognostication he volunteered in an interview to Reuters news agency in June 2022. 

While the budget balloons, the timetable is sliding.

Once completed, Roghun will be fitted with six 600 megawatt turbines, amounting to a total installed capacity of 3,600 megawatts. As Milan-based WeBuild (formerly Salini Impregilo), which has been contracted to implement the project, has claimed on its website, that is “the equivalent of three nuclear power plants.”

The first generating units were put into operation in November 2018 and September 2019 to much clamor, but there has been limited progress since then. 

State media accentuates the upside. It cites energy officials as saying that while insufficient water pressure is causing delays, the generating units in place have to date produced around 7 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity. They furthermore value that volume of electricity at 1.5 billion somoni ($137 million).

Current annual electricity production in Tajikistan, much of which is accounted for by the Soviet-vintage Nurek hydropower plant, is around 17 billion kilowatt-hours.

Putting this together, it implies that Roghun has, since the first generating unit began working, likely contributed to well under one-tenth of Tajikistan’s electricity output. 

In 2019, managers of the Roghun hydroelectric plant reportedly predicted — possibly speaking in the spirit of hope rather than pragmatism — that a third generating unit would be installed within another two years. All six units were to be operational by 2026, according to that timetable. 

That was before COVID-19, however. The pandemic caused a major slowdown on work at Roghun along with much other economic activity in the country. 

Another deadline is now in place.

“We intend to put the third unit of the Roghun hydroelectric power station into operation in 2025,” President Emomali Rahmon said in an address to the nation in December.

He noted in that speech that the project is employing 15,000 laborers and technicians.

When Rahmon speaks of Roghun in his speeches, he couches the project in talk of the “bright future” awaiting the country and that it should serve as a “source of pride” for every Tajik citizen.

A more sober reality is that Roghun is part of the race against time to keep the country’s economy afloat.

Despite the additional productive capacity added by Roghun, the population still has to endure annual rationing of electricity.

When the temperature sinks below a certain level, output from the Nurek hydropower plant grinds to a near-halt. Under the annually imposed economy regime due to end in March, as is customary, households outside the country’s largest urban centers endure blackouts from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m and then from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m.

Meanwhile, the rate of population growth means that demand for electricity will continue surging. 

The World Bank in 2022 estimated that Tajikistan had the “youngest and fastest growing population in the Europe and Central Asia region.”

“Children under six years old comprise 17 percent of Tajikistan’s population, while roughly one of every three people is under 15 years of age,” the bank said at the time.

State statisticians have said that the current population of Tajikistan is just a whisker over 10.1 million. Fresh figures from last week, based on birth and death data, showed a population increase of 200,000 in 2023. That is a 2 percent rise.

Getting a clear and reliable idea of how much has been spent on Roghun over the past 16 years is tricky. Juma, the Energy Minister, threw out the figure of $3 billion in 2022. 

Dushanbe-based news outlet Asia-Plus cracked some numbers to come up with an updated estimate earlier this month and arrived at around 40 billion somoni, or $4 billion.

Considering current projections, which Juma says were calculated with the assistance of international consultants, that leaves $2.2 billion to go.

Tajikistan makes no secret of the fact that it is hoping for white knight investors to swoop in and provide the cash needed to get it over the line. 

But its efforts to get foreign funding so far have exposed it to considerable debt-servicing expenditure. 

In September 2017, the National Bank issued $500 million worth of eurobonds on the international market. That venture means Tajikistan is on the hook for around $850 million to be paid to investors by 2027.

Important chunks are arriving from here and there, though.

In December, the state-backed Saudi Fund for Development announced it was under a development loan agreement with Tajikistan contributing $100 million to fund the Roghun project.

A few months earlier, in May, China-dominated development lender Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank had reportedly — according to President Rahmon’s office — pledged to extend a soft $500 million loan to Dushanbe for the same purpose. Talk on this particular commitment has gone a little quiet since then.

Back in 2022, a representative for the European Union’s investment arm, the European Investment Bank, told Reuters that it was exploring becoming “the largest investor” in Roghun. That conversation too has withered for reasons unreported.

Environmental concerns are another factor.

Last month, a coalition of nongovernmental groups — Rivers without Boundaries, the NGO Forum on Asian Development Banks and the Bankwatch Network — issued a collective appeal to development banks to demand public discussions on an updated environmental assessment of Roghun before parting with any funds. The World Bank-backed environmental impact assessment conducted in 2014 is now woefully out of date, the coalition argued in its statement.

“Over the last 10 years we accumulated new knowledge about the dynamics of climate change, new factors of impact on the hydrological regime of the Vakhsh River and the entire Amu Darya basin,” Evgeny Simonov, international coordinator for Rivers without Boundaries, was cited as saying. “Even the most superficial analysis shows that potential transboundary impacts of the [Roghun] hydropower plant are enormous, and their consideration in the new environmental assessment … is practically non-existent.”

Source

The post Tajikistan’s Mega Hydropower Project on the Brink of Financial Turmoil appeared first on Ankara Haftalik.

Rustam Emomali is increasingly the face of his country on the international stage

On January 29, China signed off on an agreement to hand Tajikistan the gift of $2 million to fund the construction of a conference room in a government building.

As grants go, it is not a lot, but the real significance of the development lies elsewhere.

As an official press release asserts, that the money was disbursed at all was the result of a visit paid to Beijing by the 36-year-old chair of the Senate, Rustam Emomali, better known to the public for being the son of President Emomali Rahmon. Common Tajik convention dictates that the son adopt their father’s first name as their surname, hence the echo.

In a pattern reminiscent of the father-to-son transition in Turkmenistan, where Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov yielded the president’s chair to Serdar Berdymukhamedov, in 2022, Emomali has increasingly become his country’s face on the international stage.

He has traveled to Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, where he has held meetings with the presidents. In Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, Emomali has met with heads or deputy heads of government.

On January 8-9, he was in Iran, where he held talks with President Ebrahim Raisi and came away brandishing $120 million of cooperation agreements and contracts. It was reported that his China voyage produced $400 million of fresh investments in Tajikistan.

But still, the long wait for transition is making some antsy.

Conversations about a succession plan have been ongoing for around a decade.

Under changes to the constitution approved by a curated referendum in May 2016, the age at which a candidate was permitted to run for presidential office was lowered from 35 to 30. It was thought by many that this was being done to pave the way for Emomali, who was 26 at the time, to stand in the 2020 elections.

There has been more klaxon-volume clue-dropping than even that. In 2017, President Rahmon appointed his son mayor of the capital, Dushanbe, thereby shunting out his old comrade and Kremlin pet, Mahmadsaid Ubaidulloyev. Three years later, Emomali was elected head of the upper house of parliament. He holds both jobs contemporaneously.

There are no more available free rungs on the career ladder in Tajikistan.

At 71, Rahmon is by no means ancient, but he is doubtless aware of his own mortality. His older brother, Nuriddin, died of heart failure at the age of 67 in 2017, despite doubtlessly receiving the best available medical care. And nobody could accuse the corpulent leader of always looking like the poster boy for good health.

So why the wait?

One explanation that has circulated is that there is persistent nervousness about Rahmon handing over the reins to a country that has, after all, known civil war in its relatively recent history. As the poorest country to emerge out of the former Soviet Union, Tajikistan has been assailed by many unexpected shocks.

In the year of the most recent presidential election, 2020, Tajikistan was, along with the rest of the world, brought low by the COVID-19 pandemic. The economic impact of smaller numbers of Tajik migrant laborers being able to earn money to send home, usually from Russia, meant fewer people could afford to buy food.

Once that alarm was more or less weathered, another loomed on the southern border. In August 2021, the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan, with which Tajikistan shares a difficult-to-monitor 1,357-kilometer border.

The following year, Rahmon brutally dealt with a domestic security crisis of his own making by going out of his way to crush the remnants of the so-called “informal leadership” network of the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region in the Pamirs.

That confrontation, which culminated in many Pamiri leaders and activists ending up either dead or in prison, was part of a pattern established soon after the 1997 peace agreement that brought an end to the civil war. Every few years or so, Rahmon has picked a fight with one or other constituency that he perceived could challenge his authority and has then proceeded to obliterate them.

Tajikistan has not had a real, viable political opposition group since 2015, the year that almost the entire leadership of the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan, or IRPT, was thrown behind bars.

The most recent trouble has come in the shape of deadly border conflicts with Kyrgyzstan, in 2021 and 2022. Very much against expectations, though, there are indications that the territorial disagreements that underlay those miniature wars could soon see some kind of resolution. The process is now ongoing.

Observers wonder if tying that loose end could be the key.

“President Rahmon has needed to resolve thorny issues that a young leader could not handle. If internal political issues do not arise in the near future, then after the border issues with Kyrgyzstan are resolved, early elections will be announced,” one source in the halls of government told Eurasianet on strict condition of anonymity.

If that forecast is accurate – and there is rarely any way of knowing beyond doubt – then a timetable could be coming into focus.

Kyrgyzstan’s President Sadyr Japarov has said that he thinks the Kyrgyz-Tajik border question could be wrapped up toward this spring.

In a recent article for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on the Tajik succession question, analyst Galiya Ibragimova saw other bumps in the road for a would-be President Emomali. Citing her sources, she said there is much apprehension among the extended ruling family that Emomali could shut them out.

“Not everyone within Rahmon’s large family wants to see Rustam as the successor,” Ibragimova wrote. “Numerous relatives of the president who occupy high positions in government and in the world of business are afraid of losing everything after a change of power, even if it is a change of father to son.”

The presidential family is indeed large. Rahmon has nine children: seven daughters, many of them with husbands who have secured important government posts or snaffled valuable assets by less-than-transparent means, and two sons.

There is nevertheless an air of inevitability about succession. In recent years, Emomali has become a constant feature by his father’s side, forever standing next to him at opening of new factories and schools. He makes a point of being seen meeting with businesspeople and successful sportspeople. News of his charitable work gets ample airing.

In a state of the nation-style address on December 28, President Rahmon said that municipal leaders would do well to learn from the mayor of Dushanbe, his son, who he said had created large numbers of new jobs.

“I would like to express the gratitude of the government of the country to the leadership of the city of Dushanbe. This year alone they created 40,000 jobs … 5,000 of them for women,” Rahmon said, before the camera cut away to Emomali sitting within a row of other officials

Source: Eurasia

The post Is Tajikistan’s succession saga any closer to the end? appeared first on Ankara Haftalik.

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

The post Will the Third Time Be the Charm for Tajikistan’s Thwarted Power Transition? appeared first on Ankara Haftalik.

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

The post Four Ministers replaced in new government of Kazakhstan appeared first on Ankara Haftalik.

Giant portraits of President Emomali Rahmon adorn even the most nondescript buildings in Tajikistan’s capital of Dushanbe. Throughout the country, his sayings are featured on posters and billboards. Their ubiquitous presence underscores the consolidation of power by Rahmon – officially described as “Founder of Peace and Unity, Leader of the Nation” – since he emerged victorious from the 1992-1997 Tajikistan civil war that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union. After three decades in power, he has established himself as an absolute ruler with no tolerance for dissent.

Rahmon’s bid to centralize control includes efforts to silence political opponents, human rights activists, and independent voices. More than a decade ago, Tajikistan’s media environment was relatively diverse and allowed for some criticism and debate, as long as local media avoided reporting on the president and his extensive family. Now, Tajikistan’s media are in their worst state since the violent years of the civil war, journalists told a Committee to Protect Journalists’ representative during a visit to the country late last year and through messaging apps.

Seven journalists were sentenced to lengthy prison terms in retaliation for their work in 2022 and 2023. The United Nations Human Rights Council has criticized “the apparent use of anti-terrorism legislation to silence critical voices” and expressed concern about reports alleging that torture was used to obtain false confessions from prisoners.

In one telling sign of the climate of fear that prevails in Tajikistan, only two among the more than a dozen journalists, press freedom advocates, and experts that CPJ met with were willing to speak on the record.

Some key takeaways from CPJ’s visit:

‘The collapse of independent Tajik journalism’

Prior to 2022, Tajikistan rarely jailed journalists. “For the president [Rahmon], it was important to be able to say we don’t touch journalists,” one local journalist told CPJ.

That changed with the unprecedentedly harsh sentences meted out to the seven convicted in 2022 and 2023 on what are widely seen as charges in retaliation for their work. Four journalists – Abdullo Ghurbati, Zavqibek Saidamini, Abdusattor Pirmuhammadzoda, and Khurshed Fozilov – received sentences of seven or seven-and-a-half years, Khushom Gulyam eight years, Daler Imomali, 10 years, and Ulfatkhonim Mamadshoeva, 20 years – a development seen by many as a deeply chilling escalation in the years-long constriction of independent media.

For Abdumalik Kadirov, head of the independent trade group Media Alliance of Tajikistan, 2022 marked “the collapse of independent Tajik journalism.”

Interviewees told CPJ that only two significant independent media voices now remain in Tajikistan: privately owned news agency Asia-Plus and U.S. Congress-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s local service, the Czech Republic-headquartered Radio Ozodi.  

Both regularly face harassment and threats. Their websites have long been subjected to partial shutdowns by local internet service providers – the result of behind-the-scenes orders from state officials, according to local journalists, so that authorities can deny responsibility for the outages.

Asia-Plus has been forced to moderate its content, reducing its political coverage, following a May 2022 threat from authorities to shutter its operations.

A handful of other outlets either avoid political topics entirely, struggle to maintain independence in the face of government repression, or barely function due to lack of funding, multiple sources said. Adding to challenges for journalists are less visible forms of pressure, such as threats of tax fines and surveillance of their work.

“Everything is done indirectly,” one journalist said. “[The authorities] have many levers. They can make it known to a [financially] struggling outlet that it will be hit with huge tax fines, or its management will face criminal charges, and it’s advisable just to lay things down.” Several interviewees said that each media outlet has a “curator” from law enforcement agencies as a reminder that it is being watched, and authorities can threaten rigged tax or other inspections, or even order advertisers to pull their ads.

Particularly since authorities banned the country’s main opposition party in 2015, key independent media have been forced into closure and “dozens” of journalists have chosen exile. A government decree enacted shortly after this requires media outlets to pass an inspection by state security services prior to registration, the head of the National Association of Independent Media of Tajikistan (NANSMIT) Nuriddin Karshiboev told CPJ, with “virtually no new independent media” on the national level being registered since.

Rising fear and self-censorship

The year 2022 had a “devastating” effect on Tajikistan’s already embattled independent media, one journalist said. Several interviewees linked the crackdown on journalists to the authorities’ brutal suppression of protests in the eastern Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region in May-June 2022. Immediately after those protests erupted, authorities arrested 66-year-old journalist and human rights defender Mamadshoeva on charges of organizing the unrest, airing what many believe to be a forced confession days later on state TV.

Four journalists with RFE/RL and its project Current Time TV were attacked after interviewing Mamadshoeva immediately before her arrest, and authorities’ shuttering threat against Asia-Plus was issued over its coverage of events in Gorno-Badakhshan. While most of the other jailed journalists did not cover Gorno-Badakhshan, analysts told CPJ their arrests were in part calculated to have a chilling effect on the press amid the crackdown in that region.

Above all, interviewees said, 2022 entrenched a climate of fear and exacerbated already high levels of self-censorship among journalists. “We don’t know who might be next,” one journalist said. “2022 silenced all of us, not just those who were arrested,” said another. “Journalists fear saying anything.”

Several journalists told CPJ they themselves self-censored more following the events of 2022, which had left increasing uncertainty over “red lines,” the topics that are off limits. “Before it was easier as the red lines were clearer – the president and his family, top state officials, and after 2015, coverage of exiled opposition leaders,” one analyst said. “Now, it’s unpredictable – what you might consider neutral, [the authorities] might not. This unpredictability is the most problematic thing for journalism.”

Others agreed with what Kadirov described as a “dramatic fall” in the number of critical articles and an increasing tendency for local media to avoid domestic politics in favor of “safe” topics such as culture, sport, and some international news.

The convictions of five of the seven jailed journalists in 2022-23 on charges of “participation” in banned political groups allowed authorities to successfully portray independent journalists as “extremists,” several interviewees said. “Society falls for this,” one journalist said, “and members of the public often do not want to speak to journalists, and experts are increasingly wary of doing so.”

The events of 2022 also deepened the sense of alienation between independent journalists and authorities and the public. Where 10 to 15 years ago authorities were forced to reckon with independent media as “a real public watchdog,” noted one analyst, officials now engage less and less with the media, rejecting or ignoring their information requests. Access to information remains “an urgent problem of Tajik journalism,” according to Karshiboev, despite some recent encouraging discussions between authorities and media organizations on how to address the issue.

Decline in international donors

“Tajik media’s biggest problem is finances,” Karshiboev told CPJ. Lacking domestic sources of funding amid a limited advertising market, Tajikistan’s independent media have for years been reliant on international donors, interviewees said. Yet in recent years donor support has significantly declined, particularly since the start of Russia’s war in Ukraine. “All Western resources and attention go to Ukraine,” one analyst lamented. Others cited a longer-term “donor fatigue” – donor organizations have lost interest in Tajikistan in particular and Central Asia more widely “because they don’t see any improvement,” one journalist said. A particular blow was the withdrawal of the Soros Foundation, previously a major media donor, from Tajikistan at the end of 2022.

Others argued that the problem was not so much a decline in donor funding as its misdirection – away from critical media and much-needed measures for media defense and toward projects of questionable value. Among other reasons, several argued that the ultimate problem is that international donors know the media is a sore spot for the Tajik government and, as Karshiboev put it, “fear damaging relations if they provide real and effective support to journalism.”

Interviewees said donors may also feel constrained by the West’s limited ability to influence on human rights issues in a country with such strong ties to Russia and China. “The Tajik government has increasingly learnt that it can act badly without any major consequences,” one analyst emphasized to CPJ. The war in Ukraine has exacerbated that dynamic.

“Before, when there wasn’t this standoff between Russia and the West, Tajikistan still looked to the West,” one journalist said. “Now they think: ‘What can the West do’?”  

A bleak outlook

Despite memories of a freer media environment only a generation ago, few of the journalists who spoke to CPJ were optimistic about the prospects for Tajik journalism in the near or mid-term future.

Many noted that Tajik journalists have become “demoralized” following 2022, that there’s been an uptick in journalists fleeing the country or leaving the profession, and that young people are reluctant to choose journalism as a career.

A marginalized independent media sector is very convenient for the government, said one analyst, “so it is unlikely to get better.” External support, in the form of more pressure and better targeted funding from Western and international donors and governments, was one of few factors capable of pushing developments in a more positive direction, several interviewees said. Kadirov and others believe that authorities’ tight control over traditional media outlets will cause independent journalists to turn more to social media and blogging to publish their reporting, making authorities likely to seek to exert even more control over those forums too.

“I see my mission as maintaining independent journalism – I can’t say in a good condition – but maintaining it at least to wait for better days,” said Kadirov.

CPJ emailed the Presidential Administration and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Tajikistan for comment, but did not receive any replies.

Source: CPJ

The post In Tajikistan, independent media throttled by state repression appeared first on Ankara Haftalik.

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.

The post Taliban Pranksters – Just Can’t Keep Them Down appeared first on Ankara Haftalik.

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

The post Tajikistan: Communications Regulator Loosening Monopoly appeared first on Ankara Haftalik.

Eight United Nations experts are awaiting a response from Tajik authorities to a letter expressing concern about the fate of convicted journalists and civil activists. UN experts and special rapporteurs in their letter demanded an explanation from Dushanbe regarding reports of gross violations of the rights of nine convicted journalists and bloggers, as well as civil activists. The letter dated 12 May 2023, is published here. UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, Mary Lawlor has visited Tajikistan earlier to address the human rights violations in the country.

In their appeal, which UN experts sent to Dushanbe in May of this year, they provided details of the detention and imprisonment, as well as information about the conditions of detention in correctional institutions for journalists and bloggers Daleri Imomali, Abdullo Gurbati, Zavkibeki Saidamini, Abdusattor Pirmuhammadzoda, Khushruz Jumaev, human rights activists Abdulmajid Rizoev, Manuchehra Kholiknazarov, Faromuz Irgashev and civil activist Ulfatonim Mamadshoeva.

The letter to Tajikistan authorities was signed by the UN Special Rapporteur of human rights defenders, Mary Lawlor, and the UN Special Rapporteur on torture, Alice Gill Edwards, cites cases of torture and ill-treatment of detainees. UN experts also criticized the Tajik authorities for imprisoning detained journalists and bloggers on trumped-up charges of extremism and collaboration with banned organizations.

Last year, authorities sentenced them to terms ranging from 7 years to life in prison. Supporters of those convicted and international human rights organizations believe that the arrests and detention of journalists and civil activists were politically motivated. UN experts noted in a 20-page letter that from arrest to trial, the rights of detained journalists and activists were grossly violated.

One of the convicts, Daler Emomali, was accused of illegal entrepreneurship, dissemination of knowingly false information and participation in an extremist association, and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. However, human rights activists believe that the authorities took revenge on him for his critical videos.

The letter expresses concern about the fate of journalist and civil activist Ulfatonim Mamadshoeva, whom the authors call a representative of the “Pamir minority.” UN experts expressed regret that the Tajik authorities never responded to their previous letters regarding the fate of Mamadshoeva.

66-year-old Ulfathonim Mamadshoeva was sentenced to 21 years in prison in early December 2022 . The Tajik authorities accused Ulfathonim Mamadshoeva of organizing mass riots in the Rushan district and the city of Khorog in May 2022. Supporters of Mamadshoeva consider the criminal case to be fabricated.

The letter, signed, in particular, by the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, Mary Lawlor, and the UN Special Rapporteur on torture, Alice Gill Edwards, cites cases of torture and ill-treatment of detainees. The authors write that the arbitrary arrests of some of those convicted are contrary to the laws of Tajikistan and international law. UN experts also criticized the Tajik authorities for imprisoning detained journalists and bloggers on trumped-up charges of extremism and collaboration with banned organizations. The actions of the Tajik authorities are a stern warning to other human rights defenders: criticism will be severely punished.

The letter was officially sent to the government of Tajikistan in May. The authorities had to respond to this message within 60 days. However, apparently, there was no response from Dushanbe: the UN, as a rule, publishes responses to its appeals on its official website.

In recent years, the government of Tajikistan has been criticized by the UN, Western countries and international human rights organizations for regular violations of human rights in the country.

Source : Radio Free Europe

The post Tajikistan Did Not Respond To UN Experts, Human Rights Issues appeared first on Ankara Haftalik.

Tajikistan Supreme Court has sentenced a widely respected 65-year-old female journalist, Ulfathonim Mamadshoeva, to 21 years in prison on charges of incitement to overthrowing the government. Mamadshoeva was accused by the authorities of being a leading figure behind the political turbulence that rocked her native Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region (GBAO) earlier this year. State propaganda has previously alleged that the veteran reporter and activist hatched the purported plot, for which no credible evidence has been produced, at the behest of an unnamed foreign government. 

Mamadshoeva’s brother, Khursand, was last week sentenced to 18 years in prison on related charges. Her ex-husband, Kholbash Kholbashev, a former senior official in the border service, has been given a life sentence. All the trial proceedings were held behind closed doors. The only details to have filtered out have come from relatives of the defendants.

65-year-old female journalist, Ulfathonim Mamadshoeva was accused by the authorities of being a leading figure behind the political turbulence that rocked Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region (GBAO) earlier this year. State propaganda has previously alleged that she had hatched the purported plot, for which no credible evidence has been produced.

Mamadshoeva is just one of a countless number of people from Tajikistan’s eastern Pamirs region to have face arbitrary arrest and summary trials over the last year over claims of involvement in pro-autonomy activism. Few of the accused have been given access to legal representation. The campaign of repression is the culmination of a violent government crackdown in the GBAO in May-June that was unleashed in response to protests.

By the account of the General Prosecutor’s Office, at least 29 people were killed during security sweeps. Prosecutors later filed criminal cases against 109 Pamiri leaders and their followers.  Also last week, the Supreme Court sentenced Faromuz Irgashev, a 32-year-old Pamiri lawyer who attempted without success to run in the 2020 presidential election, to 30 years in prison. 

When unrest first broke out in GBAO in February, Irgashev was accused of acting as an intermediary between protestors and the authorities, assisting in defusing the tensions. One result of negotiations was approval for the creation of a 44-person commission involving all sides of the unrest to investigate the root of the tensions.

By May, 10 members of that commission had charges filed against them on the grounds that they had allegedly formed a criminal consortium.

Source: Genocide Watch

The post Tajikistan Journalist, Mamadshoeva Sentenced To 21 Years In Prison appeared first on Ankara Haftalik.