The international human rights organization Freedom House called Tajikistan one of the “most repressive” countries in the world in 2023.

In its new report, the organization gave Tajikistan just 5 points out of 100. Freedom House’s annual report “Freedom in the World – 2024. The Growing Damage of Unfair Elections and Armed Conflicts” was published on February 29.

“The level of freedoms in Tajikistan decreased by two points in 2023 due to ongoing actions to suppress freedom of expression and discrimination against the Pamiri minority,” said Catherine Groth, Middle East and North Africa research analyst at Freedom House.

“It had a bad effect”

She sent her opinion on the situation in Tajikistan in writing to the editorial office of Radio Ozodi. According to her, over the past ten years – from 2013 to 2023 – a sharp decline in the level of freedom can be observed in Tajikistan.

“This situation is bad for political rights and civil liberties and is the result of the leadership of autocratic President Emomali Rahmon, who has been in power since 1992,” Groth explained.

Officials in Tajikistan have not yet expressed their opinion on the report, but in the past they have always reproached human rights organizations for biased and one-sided coverage of the issue.

For example, the authorities deny the existence of political prisoners from among the opposition and their supporters, as well as well-known bloggers and journalists, claiming that they were punished for the crimes committed. Although the convicts themselves, their relatives and supporters consider the criminal cases against them to be politically motivated.

Freedom House researchers say that since the crackdown on protesters in the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region in 2022 and the arrest of dozens of people, including at least eight journalists and bloggers, attacks on civil liberties have been on the rise.

“Journalists and bloggers who have expressed their views in writing and orally have been harassed and threatened by the authorities. Several journalists have been arrested and imprisoned for long periods in the past year, and the authorities continue to suppress and censor the free press,” the report said.

According to the authors of the report, such pressure on the press has led to the fact that even ordinary citizens in Tajikistan are now trying to be careful in expressing their opinions in order to avoid persecution.

“Additional Measures to Suppress the Pamiris”

Catherine Groth also stressed the deterioration of the situation of national minorities, in particular the Pamir diaspora. She points out that “in 2023, the Pamiri community faced even harsher discrimination, and the authorities took additional measures to suppress the Pamiris.”

Officials in Tajikistan have previously said they disagree with the position of international organizations that portray the Pamiris as a national and religious minority.

“The Muslims of the Pamirs are followers of the Ismaili sect in Islam and a religious minority widely persecuted in Tajikistan. In 2023, they faced severe restrictions on their religious freedoms. Authorities restricted the places where they prayed and fined several people for organizing prayers inside their homes. In addition to this restriction of religious freedoms, Pamiri activists and ordinary citizens have faced arbitrary arrest and harassment, and even more Pamiris have fled for fear of persecution,” Catherine Groth added.

In August 2023, the authorities confirmed that they had banned five NGOs in Gorno-Badakhshan in the past six months, and the reason for this decision, they said, was that these organizations had “links to criminal groups.”

As part of the operation to suppress protests in the region, the Tajik government said that these measures were taken in order to strengthen the “factor of strengthening security,” and called the arrests “a way to prevent crimes against public order and officials of the Ministry of Defense.” However, Pamiri activists and opponents of the Tajik government say the purpose of the operation was to suppress dissidents and dissatisfied citizens with the government’s policies.

Freedom House says Russia’s two-year-old war in Ukraine has affected all of Central Asia.

Tajikistan’s economy remains heavily dependent on the income of migrant workers in Russia. As a result of the border conflicts between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, the level of hostility between the border population has sharply increased and the security of the residents of both states is suffering. Negotiations between Dushanbe and Bishkek continued throughout 2023, although the level of diplomatic relations between the two countries remained at a low level until the end of the year.

Source: Pamir Inside

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In Tajikistan, over 20% of the population lives in poverty, and millions of citizens have emigrated to Russia to find work. Meanwhile, a feudal elite under President Emomali Rahmon has ravaged the country with corruption, nepotism, and massive drug smuggling of Afghan heroin to Russia and Europe.

Although Rahmon’s successor and son, Rustam Emomali, has been increasingly in the headlines, adopting a presidential look, his stiff and awkward appearance reveals a man seemingly afraid of his shadow. Sources inside the country’s security apparatus report that he is in conflict with his powerful sisters, including Ozada, the head of the presidential office. Experts on Tajikistan in Russia and the West are surprisingly in agreement when it comes to assessing Rustam: He is not ready to assume his country’s leadership, but his greed is matched by his ruthless nature. This makes him a danger to his sisters as they and their supporters vie for control of drug smuggling corridors and lucrative sectors of the economy, such as mining.

President Rahmon sees no other option, in a patriarchal society, than to name his playboy son, enamored by fast cars and football, as his successor. Experts expect the appointment of Rustam to be made sometime this year. A former Russian intelligence officer with knowledge of the regime dynamics noted, “Rustam is mocked by many Tajiks, who refer to him as “the mute” for his public shyness, and he has little credibility.”

The officer, who requested anonymity in order to speak freely, noted that besides Rustam’s older sister, Ozada, the most qualified individual to assume the presidency is Rustam’s arch-enemy, Gen. Saymumin Yatimov, head of the country’s secret service, the GKNB. Yatimov is a seasoned diplomat and ruthless enforcer of Rahmon’s rule. The officer noted, “Yatimov is a crafty spy chief who knows where all the Rahmon family skeletons are buried, and for this Rustam sees him as a threat. It is not clear if Yatimov will allow Rustam to force him into retirement. There are indications that Yatimov will not go quietly.”

Regardless of who inherits the presidential office, they will face a dire economic situation. Skyrocketing food prices and shortages of medical aid are well-documented. To make matters worse, during Tajikistan’s harsh winters, there are frequent electrical power outages, leaving citizens to freeze in their unheated homes. Tajikistan’s best and brightest workers have emigrated in search of better lives, and vast numbers of manual laborers have sought work outside the country, taking jobs that ordinary Russians would prefer to leave to others.

Corruption, damn corruption! 

The country is stifled by cronyism and suffocating under elite corruption and state economic capture by a deep state. Every significant position in the government or industry is up for sale – from state prosecutor to banker, from high-ranking military officer to corporate executive. Failure to pay the Rahmon family, in particular Rustam, the required percentage of the proceeds of corruption or even from honestly earned revenue can result in losing one’s job, one’s company, or one’s life.

The kidnapping, torture, and execution of the well-known banker Shuhrat Ismatulloev of Orienbank is one case in point. Sources in Russia revealed that he had fallen out of favor with the Rahmon regime and was “disappeared” as a result. Ismatulloev was one of the regime’s most trusted money launderers and also cryptocurrency traders. He knew too much, according to a Russian source familiar with those arrested for his killing, noting, “This elite banker to The Family possibly wanted out from the sordid world of international crime and corruption, from laundering drug money, and from engaging in illicit high-value financial transactions with the sanctioned Iranian regime. But in Tajikistan, once you’re an insider you can never leave the elite club.”

With Russia’s economy growing and its military achieving new and impressive results on the Ukrainian battlefield, and China building ever-deeper ties with Central Asian states, expert observers are asking whether Tajikistan’s boat can be lifted as well. While other Central Asian states like Kazakhstan or Uzbekistan are strengthening their regional economic and political ties, the question remains whether the Rahmon regime’s pervasive corruption and brittle ruling system will leave Tajikistan behind, the poor stepchild of a thriving Central Asian family?

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Dushanbe 25/2 (35.71).

The social networking activity of “influencer” Ismoil Mahmadzoir is causing a stir within the country’s political and security corridors. His grandfather President Emomali Rahmon is planning his succession, which has triggered quiet maneuvering within elite factions, including Mahmadzoir’s relatives. Nobody is clear about how becomes the next president of Tajikistan. The daughters jockeying for the top job besides the grandson.

Video of a bland speech by Tajikistan’s long-time President Emomali Rahmon was posted late last month on Instagram by Buzkashi_1111, a handle created by Ismoil Mahmadzoir, the 25-year-old son of Firuza Emomali, one of the president’s daughters, who is the country’s No. 1 social media influencer with more than 1.3 million combined followers. His visibility on social media, however, has become a political liability.

The younger Rahmon posts often ostentatiously display his wealth, numerous feature videos showing huge piles of bank shrink-wrapped $100 bills, for example, to the exasperation of those in ruling circles. Flaunt it if you got it, seems the theme of the day.

Their fear is that Mahmadzoir’s flaunting of his lifestyle could cause a backlash among less privileged citizens at a time when different factions within Rahmon’s family and advisers are discreetly angling to gain an edge for their side in an unfolding battle to succeed him.

Although Mahmadzoir himself is not a contender to inherit the throne, the favorite is Rustam Emomali, the president’s eldest son, his close relatives are key powerbrokers in the opaque and treacherous succession process.

The U.K. connection

Mahmadzoir’s father, Mahmadzoir Sokhibov, is a construction magnate and top presidential adviser, including on the all-important topic of allocating business concessions to the well-connected. Mahmadzoir’s uncle, is UK-based Shamsullo Sokhibov, head of business conglomerate Faroz and husband of another of Rahmon’s daughters, Rukhshona Emomali.

Both brothers are well-connected to powerful security officials at the ministry of internal affairs and at the State Committee for National Security (SCNS), the national intelligence agency that is known in Russian as the GKNB.

Both Sokhibov brothers are keeping a close eye on the succession process, as is Hasan Asadullozoda, Rahmon’s brother-in-law and owner of one of Tajikistan’s main banks, Orienbank, which oversees major investments in the country. Earlier this year, according to our sources, Asadullozoda began looking for ways to move his capital from Tajikistan, including to the United States.

My Best Friend in Dubai!

To build his brand as a social media influencer, Mahmadzoir posts on Facebook, TikTok and five Instagram accounts. Post by Ismoil8, his handle at the account with the largest following, plays up his standing as a trendy fashionista, his role as president of the national Judo Federation of Tajikistan, and his frolics in Dubai. Managing a company called IM Group, he is frequently seen with his friend Osama Ahmed Abdullah Al Shafar, who holds a seat on the UAE’s 40-member Federal National Council, which helps prepare all proposed legislation in the monarchy.

Al Shafar, a former president of the UAE Cycling Federation, is a member of the management committee at the Swiss-based Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI). Al Shafar is also active on Instagram, where he mentioned his “dear friend” Igor Makarov, a billionaire Russian-Turkmen energy magnate, president of Areti International Group and energy adviser to former Turkmen president Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov (IO, 26/04/22). The United Kingdom has hit Makarov with financial sanctions and travel bans over allegedly providing Moscow with important economic and strategic assistance. As a result, various national cycling federations have called for his expulsion from the UCI, where he is also a management committee member.

Photo: On his various social media accounts, Ismoil Mahmadzoir shows himself with his grandfather, Tajik’s President, but also with $100 bills, in Dubai, and in his role as judo federation president. © ismoil8/Instagram – rayison_tj/Instagram – @ismoilim8/Twitter

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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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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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Berlin, Brussels (24/04 – 28.57)

Tajikistan authoritarian regime under President Emomali Rahmon is holding many Pamiris in their prisons in Dushanbe, for “political” crimes as cited by the regime, including the slightest opposition to Rahmon who has ruled Tajikistan since 1994. This Eid-ul Fitr sees many such prisoners lamenting their fate in the dreaded cells while the rest of the world celebrates the joyous moment with families and loved ones.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region (GBAO) opened a criminal case against Sino Vazirbekov, the brother of civil activist Ramzi Vazirbekov, who was sentenced to 13 years. The young man was accused of extremism after participating in an opposition rally in Berlin, Radio Ozodi reports.

Tajikistan President Emomali Rahmon is holding many Pamiris in the prisons in Dushanbe, for “political” crimes as cited by the regime, including the slightest opposition to Rahmon who has ruled Tajikistan since 1994.

A law enforcement source in GBAO told Radio Ozodi on April 14 that Sino Vazirbekov’s case was being investigated by the local prosecutor’s office. 

“The reason for initiating a criminal case against Sino Vazirbekov was participation in the event of the banned National Alliance of Tajikistan, which was reported on social networks,” said the source, who preferred not to be named.

Sino Vazirbekov, in an interview with Radio Ozodi on April 17, confirmed that he was one of the participants in the opposition protest in Berlin , however, according to him, he is not a supporter of any political group.

On March 25, a group of Tajik opposition movement members in Berlin went on a protest against Rahmon’s alleged visit to European countries. The action took place in front of the German Bundestag. Participating in the peaceful and non-violent demonstration, there were about 30 members whom were in exile from different Tajikistan – GBAO groups.

A day earlier, the supporters of Tajik opposition had gathered in front of the Tajik Embassy in Berlin and the building of the German Foreign Ministry and demanded the release of Abdullo Shamsiddin, the son of Shamsiddin Saidov, one of the activists of the Islamic Renaissance Party banned in Tajikistan.

Responding to the Tajik government’s repressive policies, the representative of the Norwegian Helsinki Committee, Marius Fossum, proposed using international mechanisms of influence, including “targeted sanctions”, against the Tajik authorities, “which violate the principles of justice and the rule of law,” Radio Ozodi reports. Fossum tweeted on April 7 that Tajik officials were “mocking justice and the rule of law.” 

He made a statement after the media published details of the case of the detained Tajik freelance journalist Khurshed Fozilov, whom the authorities accuse of collaborating with organizations banned in the country. If the charges are proven in court, Fozilov faces imprisonment for a term of 5 to 8 years.

“Tajik authorities are persecuting independent journalist Khurshed Fozilov for his legitimate journalistic activities, and in this way they are “cleansing” the remnants of freedom of speech in the country,” said Fossum.

Fozilov was detained on March 6 by officers from the State Committee for National Security in the western city of Panjakent, according to news reports. Authorities charged Fozilov with participating in banned extremist groups, but have not disclosed any specific allegations against him, a person familiar with his case told the Committee to Protect Journalists on the condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisal.

The hunt for dissenters is not only carried domestically but also against those residing abroad through kidnapping. Tajik authorities, assisted by the Russian special services, abducted dozens of people from Russian territory in 2022. Tajikistan’s General Prosecutor’s Office revealed that 96 people were extradited into the country during the period.

Most of the abductees were native residents of GBAO who took part in protests against the authoritarian Tajik government’s policies in Gorno-Badakhshan. They are convicted under Article 370 of Tajik Criminal Code on extremism using the internet. 

Political activists also face deportations from other countries for expressing discontent toward the authoritarian regime. Shamsiddin, for example was deported to Tajikistan by Germany in January before undergoing forced disappearance only to be sentenced to seven years in prison on charges of sedition.

Shamsiddin’s supporters have said his apparent crime was to “like” a post on social media. It is unclear what the content of the post was.

Shamsiddin, 32, is the son of Shamsiddin Saidov, a leading figure within the Islamic Renaissance Party in Tajikistan, which was the only significant opposition force within the country until it was outlawed in 2015. 

Shamsiddin has lived in Germany since 2009, but ran into trouble, according to a report by RFE/RL’s Tajik service, when he failed to register with the German migration service. Shamsiddin was also reportedly denied asylum on three occasions.

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It’s perhaps not surprising that Tajikistan, which shares a poorly guarded, 750-mile border with opium-rich Afghanistan, has become a major global drug-trafficking hub—in fact, more than 80 percent of Afghanistan’s heroin exports to Russia and Europe now pass through Tajik territory. Over the past decade, the United States, worried that the drug trade would soon be accompanied by all the other security problems that plague Afghanistan, has cooperated closely with Tajikistan’s government to help it stem the narcotics trade. Seems reasonable, right?

Unfortunately, that government is such a dubious partner that hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. aid have done little to solve the country’s problems or stop the drug business—while helping to shore up its apparatus of repression. The United States has spent nearly $200 million since 2001 on security assistance for Tajikistan, increasingly focused on training and arming special military and police units. In 2012, for example, U.S. Special Forces trained 350 members of the State Committee of National Security, the successor agency of the Soviet-era KGB, including courses in marksmanship, close-quarters combat and weapons.

But while the GKNB is on the front lines of fighting drug traffickers, it is also the primary organ of political repression in the country—and many observers see it as more engaged in the latter. That includes the detention and torture of dozens of dissidents, according to human rights groups.

And besides, a substantial portion of the drugs that transit through Tajikistan—accounting for as much as 30 percent of the country’s GDP—do so through legal border crossings. No surprise, as the largest drug traffickers in Tajikistan are widely believed to be closely tied to high-level officials in the deeply corrupt Tajik government. The man thought to be founder of Tajikistan’s first major drug-trafficking group, for instance, was the lieutenant to the founder of the political party that brought President Emomali Rahmon to power in 1992. “In no other country of the world, except perhaps contemporary Afghanistan, can such a superimposition between drug traffickers and government officials be found,” a 2007 research paper concluded.

Officially, the United States is critical of the human rights record of Tajikistan’s security services, pointing to ineffective law enforcement compromised by drug lords’ “high-level connections with government officials and security agents.” But in reality, Washington is complicit in this vast network of illegal trading: The majority of the trafficking in Tajikistan is believed to occur on the country’s few good roads and bridges—one of which was built in 2009 with $35 million in U.S. Central Command funds. The U.S.-trained and -equipped GKNB targets not the big-time smugglers with ties to the government, but the smaller pushers who have to sneak across the Afghan border. In the most cynical interpretation, the United States is helping the government of Tajikistan take out its drug-trafficking competition.

Congressional restrictions limit military aid to Uzbekistan, the most repressive U.S. partner in Central Asia. But Tajikistan—with a human rights record that is nearly as bad—has been able to slide under the radar and become a major beneficiary of Pentagon largesse. And Tajikistan has benefited even though its strategic utility to the United States is relatively small compared with its Central Asian neighbors. Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan host the lion’s share of overland U.S. military transit to Afghanistan (leaving Tajikistan as a backup supply route for the Uzbekistan route), and Kyrgyzstan hosts a U.S. Air Force base (at least until July).

Tajikistan’s leading opposition politician, Muhiddin Kabiri, says the U.S. focus on military issues in his country has come at the expense of America’s purported interest in human rights. Before Central Asia assumed such a large role in the Afghanistan operation, “the main question between Tajikistan and U.S. representatives was economic questions, human rights, democracy and stability,” Kabiri told me recently. And indeed, while security assistance was less than 5 percent of total U.S. spending in Central Asia in the 1990s, it has climbed to more than 30 percent since 2007. Now, Kabri says, the focus—and spending—heavily leans toward military operations. “Human rights, democracy, free elections—these kinds of problems, maybe they will touch these questions, but only last, only for protocol,” he says. All of which makes the Tajik government “very lucky.”

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