CSTO Agreement on Foreign Bases Frustrates Tajikistan’s Ambitions

On December 20, 2011, members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) reached an agreement that makes it impossible for any individual country in the group to host a foreign military base on its territory without the full consent of all other members of the organization. The initiative empowers Russia to veto any foreign basing plans in Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Hence, the move serves as a continuation of Russia’s efforts to counteract the influence of the US military and reassert its own role in its immediate neighborhood (Interfax, December 21).

The decision effectively puts an end to Tajikistan’s aspirations to explore closer security relations with non-CSTO nations. Following Tajikistan’s independence in 1991, Russia assumed the role of the country’s security guarantor. Russian border guards policed Tajikistan’s southern frontier until 2005. A Russian army division that had stayed in Tajikistan after the Soviet break-up was reorganized into a permanent military base in 2004. The base now has around 7,000 troops stationed in Dushanbe, Kulob, and Qurghonteppa (www.news.tj, October 21, 2011). Moscow has also been the largest provider of technical military assistance to Dushanbe.

Tajikistan participates in all Russian-led integration and regional security schemes, including the CSTO. The country contributes an infantry battalion to the group’s Collective Rapid Reaction Force (CRRF). In April 2010, Tajikistan hosted the CRRF’s military exercises Boundary 2010 that aimed at preventing possible incursions of “terrorists from Afghanistan” (www.news.tj, April 26, 2010). In September 2011, the CSTO conducted exercises in Tajikistan as part of Tsentr 2011, which also trained the group’s militaries in preventing possible popular uprisings (EDM, September 30, 2011).

An Extrajudicial Execution in Tajikistan (On the First Anniversary of Ali Bedaki’s Killing)

One year ago, authorities in Tajikistan announced the death of the militant Alovuddin Davlatov, aka Ali Bedaki. Despite evidence suggesting that Bedaki was captured alive in January 2011, interrogated and then executed extrajudicially, local media and human rights groups as well as the international community have mostly been silent and reluctant to address this case.

Bedaki was a mid-level opposition field commander during the 1992-1997 Tajik civil war. He later joined the police force, presumably as part of the 1997 peace accord where some former United Tajik Opposition (UTO) fighters were incorporated into Tajikistan’s security forces. He soon left the police and supposedly became a farmer. Following the September 19, 2010, attack on a government military convoy in the Rasht valley in eastern Tajikistan where 28 conscripts were killed, security agencies placed the blame on Bedaki and another former UTO commander, Abdullo Rahimov, aka ‘Mullo Abdullo’, killed in April 2011. Immediately after the attack, Bedaki’s brother, Husniddin Davlatov, was detained and alleged in a televised ‘confession’ that the convoy assault was led by his brother. Consequently, Bedaki became a key target of a security operation in the Rasht valley. His brother and father were convicted and sent to prison.

On January 4, 2011, the authorities announced that Bedaki had been killed in a shootout with government troops in the village of Runob, one kilometer south of the Rasht district center. The official narrative claimed that he and a number of his men were spotted by police and were subsequently killed in a four-hour gun battle. In February, however, the official narrative was challenged by a YouTube video. The footage showed an exhausted and humiliated bearded man, stripped to his underpants but with no apparent wounds, which relatives and former UTO fighters recognized as Bedaki. He was being questioned in the back seat of a parked car by what appeared to be members of the Tajik security agencies. Soon after, the State Committee for National Security (GKNB) said they saw the footage but refused to comment, while the police denounced the video as “an ordinary fake.” A modified account of Bedaki’s death was offered in April when Amirqul Azimov, then head of Tajikistan’s National Security Council, announced that Bedaki had been captured alive, but died due to gunshot wounds on the way to hospital.

Prominent Cleric and His Brothers Face Growing Pressure in Tajikistan

Prominent Tajik religious and political figure, Hoji Akbar Turajonzoda, and his brothers, Nuriddin and Muhammadjon, have, in recent weeks, come under increasing pressure from the authorities. On December 6, 2011, the Council of Ulamo (CoU), a government-controlled body regulating Islamic activities in the country, accused the Turajonzoda brothers of observing the holiday of Ashura, which has a special significance for Shia Muslims. The holiday is not observed in Tajikistan where the majority of people are Sunni Muslims of the Hanafi tradition.

The CoU’s statement alleged that on December 2, Nuriddin and Muhammadjon performed the Ashura ritual at the Muhammadiya Mosque. The mosque in the village of Turkobod, some 30 kilometers east of the Tajik capital Dushanbe, is one of the largest in the country. It belongs to the Turajonzoda family. Muhammadjon Turajonzoda served as the mosque’s imam after the elder brother, Nuriddin, had been forced by the authorities to resign in January 2011 (EDM, March 3, 2011).

“We are surprised that the ritual [of Ashura] was performed by members of the prominent religious family of Turajonzoda who claim to belong to the Hanafi school of Sunni Islam,” the statement said, adding “This ritual is entirely in contradiction to the Hanafi tradition… [The] Turajonzoda brothers want to popularize an alien religious practice among our people… We must stay vigilant and protect our faith from various plots; we must not allow hypocritical individuals to endanger the spiritual unity of our nation…” The statement also implied that Turajonzoda brothers were responsible for political confrontation leading up to the civil war in Tajikistan in 1992-1997 (www.khovar.tj, December 9).

President’s Son Named Tajikistan Football Chief

The eldest son of Tajik President Emomali Rahmon keeps trying on new hats. A panel tasked with selecting a president for Tajikistan’s Football (soccer) Federation (FFT) voted unanimously today for Rustam Emomali. This seems to be a great birthday present for Rustam, who turned 24 on December 19. Rustam previously served as vice-president of the FFT and oversaw the national football team.

Well, football is actually something that Rustam Emomali has to understand very well. He is the founder of the football club Istiqlol Dushanbe, and has both played for the team as striker and served as its captain. The club won the national championship twice over the last two years (with some fans suggesting that part of the club’s success had to do with favorable refereeing).

Hopefully, the responsibilities that come with the new post will not add too much load on Rustam, who is already pretty busy. The Tajik president’s son is in charge of fighting illegal activity as part of the Customs Service. He is also head of Tajikistan’s Youth Union and a member of the Olympic Council of Asia’s International Relations committee. In the past, Rustam headed a department at the State Committee for Investments and State Property Management and held a seat in the Dushanbe City Council.

“Infidel Santa Claus” Killed By Angry Youths in Tajikistan

When people in Tajikistan discuss whether the celebration of New Year can be reconciled with religious beliefs of the country’s population, it is one thing. But when angry youths kill a man dressed as Santa Claus, calling him an “infidel”, you know that things are getting worrisome.

Parviz Davlatbekov, 24, was murdered in a knife attack in a residential area of Dushanbe early in the morning on January 1. He had dressed as Santa Claus (known more commonly in Tajikistan by its Russian name, ‘Ded Moroz’ or ‘Father Frost’) and was on his way to a party at his relatives’ place when some 30 young men attacked him. According to witnesses, the men shouted “infidel” as they beat Davlatbekov, referring to the Christian origins of Santa Claus as a character. Davlatbekov was rushed to the hospital, where he died the next day of wounds inflicted in the attack.

Tajikistan was part of the officially atheist Soviet Union for almost 70 years. During the Soviet rule, most Tajik families began celebrating the New Year and accepted Santa Claus as the holiday’s main attribute. Following the country’s independence in 1991, most Tajiks continued celebrating the New Year, and Santa Claus remained a widely accepted symbol. However, the increasing religiosity of Tajikistan’s population, more than 95 percent of which are Muslims, has recently given rise to debates over whether the celebration of the New Year and the holiday’s attributes contradict Islamic beliefs. For instance, Saidmukarram Abdulkodirzoda, the head of the Council of Ulems (the highest religious authority in Tajikistan), recently announced that the New Year holiday is “alien to our people and our religion.” Yet, New Year has remained an official holiday in the country, and Tajikistan’s President Emomali Rahmon delivers a televised New Year address every year.

2011 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 9,700 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 4 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Tajikistan’s 20 Most Influential People

Tajikistan’s leading political newspaper, Asia-Plus, has presented a list of the top 20 most influential people in the country. According to the newspaper, their initial idea was to compile a list of the richest people in Tajikistan, something similar to the Forbes’ list. However, Asia-Plus had to abandon this idea because it is virtually impossible to collect credible information on the wealth of Tajikistan’s “moguls”.

Consequently, the newspaper decided to ask 30 leading journalists and political and economic analysts in the country to name the most influential individuals in Tajikistan and rank them in terms on their influence on political decision-making and appointments, economics and finance, security forces, and public opinion. As a result, the Asia-Plus has compiled a list of the top 20 persons that have the power to shape the future of Tajikistan.

The list is as follows:

1. Emomali Rahmon, the President of Tajikistan. This has hardly come as a surprise to anyone. He holds an unchallenged monopoly on political power in the country, and there are no signs that this might change anytime soon.

2. Mahmadsaid Ubaydulloyev, the chairman of the upper house of Tajikistan’s Parliament (since 2000) and the mayor of Dushanbe (since 1996). Ubaydulloyev’s second place on the list is rather surprising because his influence is not always apparent.

Russia Secures Pilots’ Release But Harms Relations With Tajikistan

On November 22, a court in Tajikistan released two foreign pilots, including a Russian citizen, whose imprisonment on questionable charges two weeks earlier had infuriated the authorities in Russia and prompted them to respond in a way that threatened to ruin Tajikistan’s economy. Moscow’s harsh reaction to the incident appears to have been motivated mainly by the ruling party’s calculations ahead of the elections. Although Russia’s punitive action that focused on Tajik migrant workers was mainly designed for domestic consumption, it angered a large part of Tajikistan’s population and the political elite.

BACKGROUND: The pilots – Vladimir Sadovnichy, a Russian citizen, and Alexei Rudenko, an Estonian citizen – were detained in March after landing two cargo planes at a Tajik airport without permission. Several months later, they were charged with smuggling, illegal border crossing, and violating international aviation regulations. On November 8, a Tajik court found the pilots guilty on all three charges and sentenced them to eight and a half years in prison. The pilots alleged that the charges brought against them had been trumped up by Tajik security agencies as a justification for confiscating the aircrafts.

Tajik Security Agencies Face Allegations of Detainee Abuse and Extrajudicial Killings

A number of events in 2011 reinforce allegations of systemic abuse and torture and even the occurrence of possible extrajudicial killings in detention by law enforcement agencies in Tajikistan. On October 20, police in the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, took a badly injured Bahromiddin Shodiyev, 28, to a local hospital. Shodiyev, who had been arrested on the previous day in connection with a theft investigation, died ten days later of head wounds. The police attributed Shodiyev’s injuries while in custody to an attempted escape or suicide, claiming that he jumped from a first-floor window, but also alleged that he died not necessarily as a result of his injuries, but due to “multiple diseases of internal organs” (www.news.tj, November 1).

Shodiyev’s relatives insist on a different explanation of his death. According to his mother, he told her in the hospital that he was beaten and given electric shocks at the hands of the police, until he confessed to a crime he had not committed. Following the incident, the Tajik human rights ombudsman and an anti-torture group called on the authorities to investigate Shodiyev’s death. The growing publicity about the case led the authorities to launch an investigation as a result of which several police officers were dismissed; one facing criminal charges (www.news.tj, November 9, 15).

Analysts and human rights groups claim that what happened to Shodiyev is not an isolated incident, but part of a larger pattern of abuse in detention by police and security forces. In March, another detainee, Safarali Sangov, died in a Dushanbe hospital in almost identical circumstances. He was hospitalized several hours after being detained on drug-related charges. While police claimed that Sangov tried to commit suicide by hitting his head against a wall and jumping from a police station window, his relatives insisted that he died of police brutality (Asia-Plus, March 7). Also, in June, Ismoil Bachajonov, who was accused of drug smuggling, died in mysterious circumstances in a pre-trial facility in Dushanbe (Asia-Plus, June 9), while two minors were allegedly heavily beaten by police in the southern town of Kulob. In addition, a BBC reporter, Urunboi Usmonov, held for a month by the police in Khujand, was allegedly tortured to extract a confession (www.rsf.org, August 13).

Tajikistan Frees Jailed Pilots Under Pressure From Moscow

On November 22, a court in Tajikistan released two foreign pilots, including a Russian citizen, who two weeks earlier had been sentenced to lengthy terms in jail. The release of Vladimir Sadovnichy, a Russian citizen, and Alexei Rudenko, an Estonian citizen, has been prompted by an unusually strong backlash from Moscow that threatened to ruin Tajikistan’s economy.

Sadovnichy and Rudenko were flying their Antonov-72 cargo planes from Afghanistan to Russia on March 12 when Tajik air traffic controllers denied them permission to land for refueling at the Qurghonteppa (Kurgan-Tube) Airport in southern Tajikistan. The pilots landed their aircrafts anyway, claiming that they did not have enough fuel to return to Kabul. After the landing, the crews of the two planes were placed by State Committee for National Security (GKNB) forces in a hotel where they were held for about two months. In May, Tajik authorities formally arrested Sadovnichy and Rudenko, but released the rest of the crew. Following a trial that had been kept mostly low-profile, the two pilots were on November 8 found guilty of smuggling, violating international aviation regulations, and illegally crossing Tajikistan’s border. They were each sentenced to eight and a half years in prison and the planes were confiscated as “physical evidence”.