A group of opponents of the Tajik government in Europe said that the authorities have increased pressure on their relatives inside the country for three days.

The reason, according to them, was that “the president of the Republic of Tajikistan is likely to visit one of the European countries, and the representatives of the opposition should not hold demonstrations, raise slogans, and throw eggs against him.”

Tajik authorities have not yet announced the president’s visit abroad. Our efforts to get an official comment have so far been unsuccessful. The travel time is also not exact.

“The authorities demand the parents and other relatives of the Tajik opposition to force their children not to participate in any demonstrations or gatherings during Emomali Rahmon’s visit,” the statement of Paimon Milli, a coalition of four opposition organizations, said.

No official comment is available.

Officials of the National Alliance said on March 19 that such a threat has so far reached the relatives of Sharofiddin Gadoev, Salim Sultanzoda, Shohrajab Shohimi, Abdushukur Mannonov and other activists.

Sharofiddin Gadoev said that, in fact, his mother was called to the Department of Internal Affairs of Farkhor district two days ago. “They said there, tell your son not to protest against the president in Europe,” he said.

A similar situation happened on March 18 to the relatives of Shohrajab Shohimi, one of the representatives of the opposition, in the city of Panjakent. Shahimi says, “they even sent me a recording of my mother’s voice. In it, my mother scolded me and begged me not to join any group, not to protest.”

We also spoke with relatives of some of the opposition inside Tajikistan. They confirmed such conversations, but asked us not to publish their names and words in order not to cause difficulties in their work and life.

Meanwhile, representatives of the opposition in Europe claim that the authorities registered the house, car, land and other assets of their parents and “received a letter that if their children take part in demonstrations against Emomali Rahmon, they will confiscate everything.”

Mahmadzarif Saidov, a member of the Islamic Renaissance Banned Party in Tajikistan, says that on March 19, the authorities told his son to take the documents of the house to the security office of Dushanbe.

“Before that, the authorities took my parents, brother and eighteen-year-old son to the security office of Rudaki district and took a promise and a letter. My son asked me to promise in a video that I will not participate in the protests during the president’s visit. I did this in order not to put pressure on my parents. Saidov added.

In a statement on March 19, the National Alliance called the behavior of the Tajik authorities a “crime against humanity” and asked the government to “stop taking hostages of relatives and friends of political opponents.”

The President of the Republic of Tajikistan was in Germany in October 2023, when the opposition gathered against him, raised slogans and threw eggs at his car. This situation provoked the anger of the authorities and the relatives of some of the opponents were arrested and some were completely deprived of the use of electricity.

Human Rights Watch said in a report at that time that about 50 relatives of Berlin protesters were arrested in Tajikistan and some were released only after interrogation.

Source: Ozodi

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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

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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

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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

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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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Budapest (12/8 – 33)

Mahmadzohir will theoretically be eligible to run for president in 2027.

In Tajikistan, only the president is permitted to enjoy an unfettered public profile. An intriguing exception to this norm is emerging, however, with another figure amassing huge levels of apparent popularity and prominence. This person too is a member of the ruling family.

Ismoil Mahmadzohir, who turned 26 last month, is the grandson of President Emomali Rahmon. His mother, Firuza, is one of Rahmon’s seven daughters. He attended the Elite British Prep School Queen Ethelburga’s College and is the CEO of IM Group.

Ismoil Mahmadzohir is born on July 11, 1997. He is son to Mahmadzoir Sokhibov and President Rahmon’s daughter, Firuza Imomali. Nephew of Shamsullo Sokhibov and Rukhshona. He is the CEO of IM Group. He has served as president of the Judo Federation of Tajikistan.

Mahmadzohir – a visually distinctive character on account of his moustache; not a popular fashion choice in Tajikistan – owes his recognizability to a considerable extent to Instagram, where he has 2 million followers. Each post generates hundreds of likes and comments. Mahmadzohir describes himself in English on the platform as an entrepreneur, athlete, and a philanthropist.

Instagram reveals the young man to have a fondness for luxury cars, of which he owns dozens. One is appointed with the vanity plate number 1111. While his videographer films him in designer clothing and riding a gleaming black stallion, he pretends to play buzkashi, a highly rough-and-tumble horse-riding competition in which two teams fight for possession of a headless goat.

Mahmadzohir’s many Instagram accounts,

• https://www.instagram.com/ismoil8/
• https://www.instagram.com/rayison_tj/
• https://www.instagram.com/buzkashi_1111/

There is a more formal, workman-like aspect to Mahmadzohir’s activities too. Since November, he has served as president of the Judo Federation of Tajikistan. In May, Dushanbe hosted the 2023 Judo Grand Prix, an event that serves as a stepping stone to qualification for the Olympics. The event attracted a certain level of positive international media attention for Tajikistan, which tends to mainly make the news for its mass corruption and ongoing human rights abuses.

Mahmadzohir is not reticent in trumpeting his charitable works either. Last year, he reportedly paid for villagers in the Khuroson District, in southern Tajikistan, to be connected to the water supply grid. As a result, around 3,000 people received access to safe drinking water. Nobody appears to have questioned why the government didn’t do this earlier. Visits to orphanages do not go unnoticed.

Mahmadzohir is likewise eager to publicize his pious credentials. In 2021, he paid for 20 low-income families to perform the hajj to Mecca. News about this was shared on Instagram.

None of this is to say he purports to be modest in his tastes and spending abilities. His Instagram feed is littered with images of trips to places like France, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, and Austria. He likes nowhere better than the United Arab Emirates though. There, he befriended his “brother”, Osama Ahmad Abdullah Al Shafar, president of the UAE Cycling Federation, VP Of Union Cycliste Internationale, and member of the 4 person Dubai Federal National Council.

_{Above pictures: Al Shafar (in white) and Ismoil Mahmadzohir
Source –https://www.instagram.com/p/CLrQB1PnCmS}

Mahmadzohir has taken a strong lead in trying to popularize Tajikistan’s tourism appeal as well.

In April, Mahmadzohir organized for mega-popular Russian video blogger Gusein Gasanov to visit Tajikistan. Gasanov, who is known mainly for his prize giveaways, a gimmick he seems to have borrowed from U.S. YouTubers like Mr. Beast, toured the country and was mobbed by crowds of fans along the way. At the end of his trip, Gasanov uploaded a video, produced by Mahmadzohir’s IM Group production company, speaking fulsomely about Tajikistan’s appeal as a destination. It has not been stated explicitly that Gasanov was paid for the visit, although it is probably safe to assume he was. But there is a political awkwardness to all this fanfare.

While President Rahmon, 70, has no cause to fear Mahmadzohir’s mounting profile, there is another person who might. It is widely assumed that Rahmon’s eldest son, Rustam Emomali, 35, is being primed to take over running the country at some point in the near future.

Emomali’s apprenticeship for this eventuality has been a decade in the making. Over the years, he has been rotated through jobs, from head of the customs service to chief of the anti-corruption service, and now a double role as mayor of Dushanbe and, much more significantly, chair of the upper house of parliament.

But unlike Mahmadzohir, Rustam is a dour and timid personality who eschews the limelight and appears ill-at-ease when required to attend public functions alongside his father. He has no social media presence.

The challenge from the younger upstart is not purely theoretical. Under changes to the constitution effected in a choreographed referendum in 2016, the age at which a candidate may run for presidential office was lowered from 35 to 30. It was assumed at the time this was being done to pave the way for Rustam’s imminent rise to office. But it so happens that Mahmadzohir will be 30 by the time the next scheduled vote comes around in 2027.

This may all be wild speculation, however. Some question the genuineness and depth of the popularity indicated by those Instagram figures. “I don’t think he has any political ambitions at the moment,” one political commentator who requested to remain anonymous. “For now, he is busy with amassing his business fortunes, including from lucrative trafficking of Afghan opium and heroin.  While most Tajiks live in abject poverty, and millions are forced to seek employment in Russia, Mahmadzohir flashes hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash in his videos as a message to his cronies and elite followers that he is the ‘Dollar King’, essentially mocking most Tajiks.”

Mahmadzohir’s untrammelled success as a Tajik influencer is thanks to a well-funded public relations team that not only produces drone videos of his galloping about the countryside on his exquisite steeds or pumping through the streets of Dushanbe in quarter million-dollar Ferraris and Bently’s, but that also manages four different Instagram accounts.

“Those people who would like to write something negative prefer to remain quiet, naturally. They understand that there is a level of risk in this even if the criticism is constructive,” the commentator said, noting the recent arrest of a prominent Tajik doctor and hospital director after he published a book alleging corrupt and dysfunctional practices.

Sure enough, what happens instead is that every time Mahmadzohir posts on Instagram, the replies are filled with praise, including from employees of the state broadcaster, university scholars, civil servants and the like.

In a rich field of competitors, the prize for main flatterer may go to state TV presenter Ulugbek Salimbekzoda, who took to Facebook in July to congratulate Mahmadzohir on his birthday.

“Masculinity and tenacity, gentleness and kindness, generosity and patience are among the least good qualities of our honorable Ismoil Mahmadzohir!” Salimbekzoda said in a post written in English, for reasons unclear. “He has love for the greatness of the seas, his heart is pure and peaceful like a river. We are proud of his presence on earth with all his love and sincerity.”

_{Above pictures: Ismoil Mahmadzohir and his horse collection
Source – https://youtu.be/JuIejW98grs, https://www.instagram.com/reel/CZEpTLzpth6}

Source

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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

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Up-and-down relations between Iran and Tajikistan in the past decade shot up again after Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi’s official visit to Dushanbe on November 8-9, his second trip to the Tajik capital in 18 months.

Raisi’s visit to Tajikistan was symbolically important amid a rapprochement between the countries that overshadowed the relatively standard batch of bilateral agreements that were signed.

During the trip, Raisi and his Tajik counterpart, Emomali Rahmon, announced a historic visa-free travel agreement for their citizens and deals in trade, transportation, and culture, among others.

High-ranking visits have become a regular occurrence between the two countries in the past year — with Iranian Defense Minister Reza Qaraei Ashtiani visiting Tajikistan in October and chief prosecutor Mohammad Jaafar Montazeri leading a judiciary delegation to Dushanbe in June.

But relations haven’t always been rosy between the two Persian-speaking countries, which share close linguistic, cultural, and historical ties as well as a common key ally, Russia.

Ties were marred in the past decade by tensions that saw the severing of investment and export deals, the suspension of direct flights, and the closure of Iranian charity and culture centers in Tajikistan.

Iran angered Tajikistan in 2015 by inviting the head of the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT) to a conference just months after the party was very dubiously banned and branded a terrorist group by Dushanbe.

Enraging Dushanbe further, IRPT leader Muhiddin Kabiri was photographed being greeted by Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at the event.

The relationship plunged to a new low in 2017 when Tajik state television — a government mouthpiece — accused Iran of financing and ordering political assassinations in Tajikistan after a string of prominent public figures, including politicians and scholars, were killed between 1997 and 2004.

In response, Iran accused Tajikistan of making baseless, blatant lies.

On Again, Off Again

Amid the tensions, Rahmon didn’t attend President Hasan Rohani’s second-term swearing-in ceremony in 2017. But all seemed forgotten when Dushanbe and Tehran started mending ties and Rohani visited Dushanbe in June 2019.

In September 2020, Tajik state TV aired another controversial documentary accusing Iran of financing militant activity in Tajikistan.

Tehran called the claim a “baseless allegation” and warned Dushanbe about “the consequences of behavior” that breaches “the rules of friendly relations.”

The documentary came as the Tajik Supreme Court reportedly jailed some 50 Tajiks — former graduates of Iranian universities — on charges of treason and religious extremism in closed-door trials.

Because the Tajik state media and the judiciary reflect precise government positions on issues, Dushanbe’s motives behind delivering a new blow to its ties with Iran are unclear.

What Does The Future Hold?

Rahmon also failed to attend Raisi’s inauguration ceremony in August 2021, citing a prior engagement. But the two presidents did meet the following month, when Raisi chose Tajikistan as the destination for his first foreign trip as president, coupling it with attendance at a key regional security summit.

Bilateral ties have, since then, increasingly strengthened.

In early 2022, Dushanbe and Tehran announced plans to increase bilateral trade to $500 million in future from just $121 million in 2021. And Rahmon went to Tehran in May 2022 — his first trip to Tehran in nine years, as relations were rekindled.

Ahmet Furkan Ozyakar, a Turkish-based expert on regional politics, said Iran’s “look-toward-the-east policy under President Raisi is…a noteworthy determinant in advancing relations with Dushanbe” amid Iran’s severe economic problems due to Western sanctions over Tehran’s controversial nuclear program.

“In the upcoming months we expect more official meetings between Dushanbe and Tehran at the ministerial level as part of this rapprochement in joint military and security agreements, along with increasing trade capacities,” Ozyakar, a lecturer on international relations at Ataturk University, told RFE/RL.

But given the recent history of the ups and downs between Iran and Tajikistan, some analysts are not as optimistic.

Touraj Atabaki, a prominent Middle East and Central Asia expert, doesn’t rule out the possibility of new “problems” arising in the foreseeable future. Atabaki, professor emeritus at Leiden University, says any major political changes within one of these two countries or international developments could affect relations between Dushanbe and sanctions-hit Iran.

“Tajikistan’s approach to international affairs is different from Iran’s approach on that matter. Challenges in the world arena might either bring them closer or break them apart — challenges like Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine or the current [Israel-Hamas] war, which threatens to spread to the wider West Asia region,” Atabaki told RFE/RL.

Source

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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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