Dubai (5/7 – 75)

The government of Tajikistan’s campaign against the operations of a charitable organization funded by the Agha Khan, the spiritual leader of the country’s Ismaili minority, has intensified over the past few weeks.

In the most recent development, the authorities have revoked the license of the Aga Khan Lycée in Khorog, the capital of the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region, or GBAO. A source at the Aga Khan Foundation told Eurasianet that June 30 was the last day that the secondary school would operate under its aegis. 

The Aga Khan Development Network, the umbrella organization under which that foundation operates, has been providing assistance to Tajikistan in education and healthcare since the early years of independence. One major achievement has been the construction of the University of Central Asia in Khorog, where teaching is carried out in English.

Whenever the current Aga Khan visited Tajikistan between 1992 and 2011, tens of thousands of Ismailis, who hail primarily from the country’s Pamir highlands, flocked to see him in person. It is believed, however, that the clamor around the Aga Khan has incurred the displeasure of President Emomali Rahmon, upon whom a lavish personality cult has been built.

The Aga Khan Development Network has been providing assistance in education and healthcare to Tajikistan since the early years of its independence. In the latest development, the government of Tajikistan’s campaign against Aga Khan, the spiritual leader of the country’s Ismaili minority, has intensified over the past few weeks.

The Pamiris have been on the receiving end of a sustained campaign of repression from the authorities in Dushanbe. A security sweep dubbed an anti-terrorist operation in May 2022 led to the killing of dozens of community leaders. Hundreds more were imprisoned after secretive trials on grounds that they were purportedly plotting to cause political turmoil.

It was after that drama played out that the government began moving to dismantle paraphernalia related to the Aga Khan and, furthermore, appropriating assets belonging to his foundation.

According to Pamir Daily News, a Telegram channel that covers events in the Pamirs, the government has to date nationalized multiple educational initiatives run by the Aga Khan Education Service.

The upmarket Serena Hotel in Khorog and the premises of the First Microfinance Bank and the Mountain Societies Development Support Program, or MSDSP, have similarly been confiscated, according to reports. And the Prosecutor’s Office in the GBAO has applied with the courts to nationalize the Aga Khan Medical Center in Khorog.

A source at a Aga Khan organization has told Eurasianet that these developments have led to the loss of around 300 jobs for local people in Khorog, where unemployment is rife.

The pressure has been applied in other forms too.

The Ismaili Centers in Khorog and Dushanbe, the capital, have been banned for holding events for the promotion of religious literacy.

Source : Eurasia

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“We will destroy anyone who raises his head. If you try to complain, you will suffer the fate of those Pamiris arrested and executed. We order you to halt any kind of dissent or criticism of the government.”

Governor Alisher Mirzanabatov

On a warm spring day last May, an ominous news conference was held in the picturesque city of Khorog, the regional capital of Tajikistan’s autonomous mountain region of Badakhshan, and where protestors had been gathering by the hundreds to decry government injustices.  Speakers included senior officers of both the country’s internal security services and feared secret police, but the last word was by the region’s recently appointed governor, Alisher Mirzanabatov (Mirzonobot).  The grim faced, stocky governor and former deputy head of the Tajikistan secret police, warned that “criminal elements” were destabilizing the region and that protests needed to cease, or else action would be taken. 

A few days later, Mirzanabatov coordinated the launch of a campaign of ethnic cleansing – killing, arrests, torture, and silencing, that targeted the non-violent demonstrators and civil society leaders of the Pamiri ethnic minority. Most Pamiris are followers of Ismaili Shi’ite Islam, speak languages separate from Tajik and boast of an ancient cultural history that sets them apart from the majority Sunni Muslims of Tajikistan. A hardy, highly educated and peaceful people, the Pamiris inhabit the “rooftop of the world” – the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast (GBAO) that comprises 40 percent of the country.  

It is precisely their autonomy and insistence on being culturally separate but equal Tajik citizens, that set the Pamiris on a collision course with the aspirations of President-for-life Emomali Rahmon for complete control over a country that has essentially become his extended family’s fiefdom.  

Knowledgeable sources inside the security services describe how an escalating campaign against Pamiri autonomy gathered steam in November 2022 with the appointment of Mirzanabatov as governor, replacing a conciliatory Pamiri.  Secret police, civilian police, and government apparatchiks imposed increasingly repressive measures on the population, neighborhood “watch committees” were organized like those in communist Cuba, and security service officers humiliated Pamiris daily with threats, sexually abusive language toward women, and provocative insults of the Pamiris’ Ismaili faith and their spiritual leader the Aga Khan.  

The May 2022 new conference marked the long-planned launch of what a well-placed source access to the presidential office described as the “final solution” to the problem of Pamiri autonomy, and the perceived humiliating outside economic support the Pamiris had received by the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN), that employed thousands in health, education, rural development, and cultural institutions.  This, despite the decades of educational initiatives by the AKDN to inculcate the values of citizenship and national unity among Pamiri youth.

Two days after governor Mirzanabatov marched off the stage, Tajik military trucks and armored personnel carriers carrying units of both the dreaded Alpha Unites of the GKNB secret police, and elite units from the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) descended on Pamiri protestors in the town of Vamar who were blocking their access to Khorog, 60 km to the south.  

The 18th May has become a day of infamy for Pamiris, as the security forces carried out a blood bath, shooting protestors not only from the ground, but also from circling helicopters with snipers who hunted down protestors fleeing to the mountains.  Sources estimate that around 40 persons were killed, and many more injured.  Others were arrested and tortured, some to in jail death, and their bodies dumped near the local hospital.  Videos of distraught and wailing relatives outside the hospital were smuggled out of the country.  

Proportional to the population of Pamiris, almost 300 Russians would have died, or almost 3,000 Chinese in a single incident.  What followed in the weeks and months after the Vamar massacre were the arrests of hundreds of Pamiris, many subjected to extreme torture, and then condemned to lengthy prison terms, including popular athletes, journalists, and religious leaders.  The community was further traumatized as the security forces systematically hunted down and killed all remaining informal community leaders who had once led self-defense militias during the bloody Tajik civil war of 1991-1997. They played a critical role in preserving community harmony, promoting cultural traditions, and allocating social aid to needy families.  Dozens of Pamiris, including leaders of the diaspora community in Russia, were extradited to Tajikistan to disappear into prison.  

Human rights researchers note that there is no evidence of any arrested Pamiri advocating violence against the state, or the overthrow of the regime.  These same researchers estimate that around 2,000 Pamiris are now imprisoned, including Pamiris arrested before 2022.  The economic impact of these numbers is incalculable, as families have had to sell their homes to move near their loved ones’ prisons far from GBAO in order to support them with food and medicine that is not provided by the prison authorities.  

The AKDN’s development projects have come under bureaucratic strangulation threatening the livelihoods of an estimated 3,000 breadwinners.  Small businessmen and merchants have been forced to shutter their companies, and religious ceremonies in homes forbidden.  Today, GBAO resembles North Korea, with its omnipresent surveillance cameras, forced cult of the President-for-Life Rahmon, mandatory marching parades, and somber town hall meetings led by governor Mirzanabatov and his police chief, who lecture sullen citizens about the merits of obeying the law.  Hundreds of families have abandoned their homes and fled to freedom in distant countries.

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Tajikistan’s civil war came to an end in 1997 with a unique truce that saw the pro-Communist government integrating members of the opposition into various government institutions. Mamadbokir “Boqir” Mamadbokirov, a Pamiri leader from the Gorno-Badakshan region, was one of these opposition members. His story is a tragic one of indomitable courage in exposing what international observers have described as a state criminal enterprise created by president-for-life Imomali Rahmon, and a peaceful sacrifice if his life that he made on May 2022 that will likely be recalled in Pamiri lore for ages to come. Through previously unreported eyewitness accounts and public reporting, the story of one of Tajikistan’s modern heroes is finally emerging.

Boqir was a highly respected informal leader of the Pamiri people. He was born and raised in Khorog, the capital of the Gorno-Badakhshan autonomous region (GBAO), a vast mountainous area with only 2% of Tajikistan’s population, but that makes up 45% of the country. The Pamiri people, mostly Ismaili Shi’ites, had been granted autonomous political status by the Soviet Union due to their unique culture, languages, and minority religion. Following the peace treaty, the Pamiris, under the guidance of the Ismaili’s global religious leader, the Aga Khan, the Pamiris committed to building national unity, while the Aga Khan Development Network poured hundreds of millions of dollars in development aid into GBAO, launching schools, hospitals and clinics, and programs to protect the environment and create jobs, not only for Ismailis, but also in other regions of the country.

On May 22, 2022, Pamiri leader Boqir chose to give up his life so the regime would stop attacking his people. The Pamiris regard Boqir as their hero. Quoting his last words, strongly and with grim determination:

“They cannot break us.”  

Boqir was appointed by the government as a colonel in the Border Troops of the GKNB, Tajikistan’s state security service that was modeled on the Soviet KGB. He was responsible for securing the country’s borders with neighboring countries, including Afghanistan. However, events in 2006 plunged both Boqir and the Pamiris’ lives into a downward spiral of repression. The transfer of GBAO lands to China by the Rahmon regime, for the construction of a military outpost, caused popular outrage among Pamiris, and protests erupted against the central government. Col. Boqir publicly supported the protestors, a move considered disloyal to Rahmon, and a challenge to the regime’s efforts to control the GBAO.

That same year Col. Boqir and the men of his 21-07 Border Troop unit committed an unpardonable “crime” in the eyes of the regime:  They seized a major shipment of heroin that regime-backed smugglers were moving from Afghanistan through Tajikistan to Russia.  He also defended the honor a Pamiri woman whom his deputy and current governor of GBAO, Alisher Mirzanabatov, attempted to rape.  These actions led to his firing by the GKNB, which then attempted to arrest Boqir at his home.  The security services claimed that he was wanted on trumped up criminal charges, however locals stood their ground and forced the authorities to retreat and subsequently drop the fabricated accusations.  This was a short-lived victory, as the regime began to escalate it repressive actions against the GBAO’s Ismaili Pamiris, and launched a concerted campaign, boosted by Pamiri turncoats loyal to the Rahmon regime, to vilify Boqir by painting him as a crime boss and dangerous drug lord.

In 2012, Rahmon ordered his security services and special forces to take control of the restive region.  The bloody events of that summer led to the killings of 28 peaceful protestors.  Pamiris then took up arms and forced the security forces to retreat in a humiliating defeat that the regime never forgot. 

In November 2021, protests intensified following the brutal murder of Gulbiddin Ziyobekov, a local sportsman and youth leader. He was ambushed by GKNB officers, dragged across a footbridge, and tortured before being executed by gunshot. Photos of his mutilated body spread across Pamiri social media, shocking and enraging Pamiris in GBAO and the diaspora, especially in Russia.

After Ziyobekov’s murder, regime repression escalated, including cutting off local internet access, setting up police checkpoints throughout Khorog, positioning snipers, and intensively surveilling the wireline phone network. Security forces arbitrarily arrested Pamiris, brutally interrogating and torturing them to obtain false confessions and denunciations of fellow Pamiris, particularly local leaders like Boqir. In response, Pamiris organized civilian defense groups and neighborhood patrols.

The regime’s security chiefs publicly called for Boqir to surrender and escalated their charges against him and other local leaders, falsely accusing them of heading criminal enterprises. Boqir’s house and neighborhood were under 24/7 regime surveillance, including by drones. According to sources, Boqir only dared leave his house twice between November 2021 and May 2022. During the first trip, he accompanied his son to school but narrowly escaped injury or death when security forces opened fire on his car.

The situation in Tajikistan continued to escalate in May 2022. Pamiri civil activists planned a peaceful rally and protest in Khorog’s central square on May 14. While on their way to rally the protestors, they were surrounded by security forces who opened fire with rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse them. Three days later, civilians responded with further protests, peacefully resisting the security forces by blocking the Pamiri highway in Rushan district to prevent them from moving troops up the road to attack Khorog.

Ministry of Internal Affairs and GKNB forces under the orders of President Rahmon unleashed heavy gunfire on the protestors on May 18, killing 46 and arresting around 120 people. Survivors of the arrest described how detainees were brutally beaten, with some dying from torture. News reports citing local sources indicated that security forces deliberately executed some of the arrested Pamiris and sent their body parts to Boqir’s home. Several people close to Boqir said he felt personally responsible for the killings and was worried they would continue.

The numbers of dead in proportion to the Pamiris estimated population of 500,000 reveal the seismic impact of the killings on Pamiri society.  The equivalent proportion of Chinese killed in one day would be 132,000, or 30,000 Americans, or 13,000 Russians.  Survivors of the arrest described how detainees were brutally beaten, with some dying from torture.

On the night of May 21, according to a trusted source who wishes to remain anonymous in order to protect his identity and the safety of his family, Boqir received a telephone call from a senior security officer who issued an ultimatum: “Surrender now, or we will use all possible armed force to arrest you regardless of how many civilians attempt to defend you.”  Later that night, Boqir’s home came under fire by snipers positioned in the mountain slopes above his neighborhood.  

The next day, Sunday, May 22, followers of Boqir were gathered around his house in order to attempt to protect him from any moves by the security forces to move against him.  To their surprise they saw him silently exit his door with a stoic look on his face.  He did not respond to greetings called out to him but did stop briefly to politely inquire how some of his comrades were holding up.  As he turned to walk towards the street, he spoke his last words, strongly and with grim determination: “They can’t break us.”

According to a witness who approached Boqir, the colonel’s phone rang and when he answered an unidentified individual was heard taunting and threatening Boqir, saying, “If you are a man, then come to the Boyni neighborhood and let’s meet.”  Other witnesses report that numerous surveillance drones were in the skies above Khorog that day.  Boqir began to calmly walk towards Boyni, seeming not to notice the growing crowd of persons following him concerned for his security and wanting to see where he was going and.  Suddenly, a pickup truck roared around the corner, screeching to a stop in front of Boqir, and four GKNB Alpha unit commandos jumped onto the street with their guns raised.  

The alarmed crowd began scattering in fright, leaving Boqir and a young follower alone on the street.  An Alpha commando took aim at Boqir striking him in the stomach.  Boqir’s young follower rushed to protect him and was shot in the arm.  The two men crumpled to the ground.  A GKNB commando then executed Boqir with a shot to the head.  The commandos quickly fled the scene.

Bystanders then rushed to Boqir’s side, but it was too late.  The car bringing his body back to his home came under sniper fire, but once inside his family and friends began all the obligatory Islamic rituals to prepare him for burial.  Despite government orders prohibiting any public funeral, hundreds of Pamiris gathered to accompany Col. Boqir’s body to his burial site, where funeral prayers were led by the respected Pamiri religious leader, khalifa Muzaffar Davlatmirov.  

Three weeks later, on 12 June, two other informal leaders of the Pamiri community Zoir Rajabov and Khursand Mazarov, were executed by Tajik security forces during a raid on one of their homes.  Accusing them of being leaders of a “criminal gang,” the authorities published a photo of their bodies splayed on the floor of a living room.  Khalifa Davlatmirov at great personal risk also led the funeral services for these leaders.  On 26 July, the cleric was arrested by the authorities and in a show trial a week later was charged with the crime of “publicly calling for extremist activity using the mass media and internet.”  He was sentenced to five years and taken to the infamous YaS 3/6 prison in Yavan.

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