Tajikistan Features - The Times Of Central Asia

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Tajikistan Denounces “Torture” of Tajik Suspects in Moscow Attack, Urges Fair Trial

Tajikistan’s foreign minister has described the beating and abuse of several Tajik suspects in the mass killing of more than 140 people at a Russian concert hall as “torture” that is at odds with the need for a thorough investigation and a fair trial. Foreign Minister, Sirojiddin Muhriddin also said that Tajik people had faced an “information campaign” of racism and xenophobia since the attack at the Crocus City Hall in Moscow on March 22. His comments were some of the strongest yet by Tajikistan’s Government, reflecting increased worry over the national image and the plight of many poor Tajik migrants in Russia who were already living in precarious conditions. Muhriddin urged the Russian authorities to conduct an investigation into the Crocus City Hall attack according to international norms, including the right to a fair trial, reported Asia-Plus, a media group in Tajikistan. He spoke at a meeting of regional foreign ministers in Minsk, Belarus. “The demonstration in the open information space of footage of the detention of suspected perpetrators of a terrorist act with the use of torture against them in the form of bodily mutilation is unacceptable,” Muhriddin said. “The price of confessions obtained in this way is well known to everyone.” Several migrant laborers from Tajikistan were among suspects charged with terrorism in the wake of the attack, and they appeared in court with visible injuries. At the time, videos and photographs circulating on social media showed the men being beaten and abused while in detention. In one video, a man in camouflage cuts off part of the ear of a suspect and forces it into his mouth. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the Crocus City Hall attack, which focused attention on the group’s efforts to recruit people from Central Asia into its ranks. Muhriddin alluded to widespread reports of harassment and hostility toward Tajik migrants, particularly in Russia. “As a result of an ill-conceived information campaign, a negative perception of citizens of Tajikistan and Tajiks is being formed,” the Tajik foreign minister said. As for the attack, he said: “All criminals must be punished: the organizers, the perpetrators, the accomplices, and the masterminds of this monstrous crime.” In the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, despite ongoing Russian attempts to pin the blame for the atrocity on Ukraine, Russia has pressed ahead with new laws targeting migrants. Focusing on Russia’s “unreliable narrative” regarding the attack, Noah Tucker, a Senior Research Consultant at the Oxus Society and Program Associate of the Central Asia Program at George Washington University stated that the “last major attack inside Russia was the 2017 metro bombing. [In a] strategy of authoritarian cooperation… that was also blamed on Central Asian migrants, and the security services arrested two Uzbek brothers and sent them to jail as the direct orchestrators of the attack – only the facts never added up… One of the brothers, who was charged as being the mastermind, was lying in a hospital in Osh during the attack, and...

Turkey Cancels Visa-Free Regime for Citizens of Tajikistan

From 20 April, citizens of Tajikistan will have to obtain a visa to travel to the Republic of Turkey. That's according to a decree signed by Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The reasons for this decision remain unclear, but it's noted that the visa regime is a temporary measure. Entry documents will be issued in Dushanbe and at other Turkish diplomatic missions. Those traveling through Turkey in transit will not require a visa. Tajik Foreign Ministry spokesman, Shohin Samadi, said as of April 6, Dushanbe had not received an official notification from Turkey regarding the introduction of a visa regime. Nevertheless, he said, the issue of retaliatory measures for Turkish citizens is being worked out. Up until this juncture, residents of the two countries could stay on the territory of the other for up to 30 days without a visa. Some Russian media rushed to link these innovations with the March 2024 terrorist attack at the Crocus City Hall, which killed 144 people and injured 551. Among the 11 people arrested on suspicion of the terrorist attack, the majority are citizens of Tajikistan. According to various sources, the cell of Islamic State (ISIS) in Afghanistan - also known as "Wilayat Khorasan" - which claimed responsibility for the incident, was training terrorists inside of Turkey. To that point, Turkish newspaper Hurriyet wrote that two supporters of ISIS who were planning to carry out a attack were detained in Istanbul. Among them was a 37-year-old citizen of Tajikistan. On March 26, Turkish Interior Minister, Ali Yerlikaya, said that 147 people were detained on suspicion of links with the terrorist organization. Following the attack on the Crocus City Hall near Moscow, Tajiks in Russia faced a wave of aggression and hatred. Tajikistan's Government is urging its citizens to avoid traveling to Russia unless necessary, and in light of possible Russian rule changes targeting migrant workers from Central Asia, many Tajiks and others may be ready to leave Russia.

Drug Trafficking

Central Asia Counts the Cost of Drug Trafficking

Speaking at the 67th session of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs in March, Zafar Samad - director of the Narcotics Control Agency under the President of Tajikistan - admitted that vast quantities of drugs are being smuggled to Europe and Russia through Tajikistan’s “northern route.” In other Central Asian nations, increased efforts are being made to curtail the problem. Kazakhstan, for example, is strengthening its legal systems and policies to effectively counter the laundering of proceeds from drug trafficking in cooperation with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). The Kazakh government also recently approved a Comprehensive Plan to Combat Drug Addiction and Trafficking. Given its long and porous border with Afghanistan, however, the problem in Tajikistan remains acute. “The increase in the volume of drug seizures in Tajikistan indicates that there are large stocks of drugs in the northern provinces of Afghanistan intended for shipment along the northern route,” Samad stated. Smugglers are “assessing the situation and exploring the possibilities of transporting drugs into Tajikistan, taking into account the measures taken by the Tajik Government to strengthen the Tajik-Afghan border by creating new border facilities.” This year will see the adoption of a CSTO program aimed at fortifying the border between Tajikistan and Afghanistan. However, the “northern route” - sometimes called the “Heroin Highway” - has a long and checkered history, which has not always led to interstate cooperation. [caption id="attachment_16236" align="aligncenter" width="495"] The village of Karakul, GBAO[/caption] The Pamir Highway route was established in the 1990s, opening up new avenues for suppliers following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Beginning in the Kyrgyz second city of Osh, the highway - the second highest international road in the world - traverses the length of Tajikistan and down through the south of Uzbekistan before terminating in Afghanistan. An estimated 15 tons of opium and 80 tons of heroin are trafficked through Tajikistan each year, the majority passing through the poverty-stricken, self-governing Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast (GBAO) along a desolate mountainous route known locally as Bam-i-Dunya - the Roof of the World. Said by locals to be older than Rome, Osh is a dusty spread of Soviet-era buildings adorned with satellite dishes and murals of MIG fighter jets and Misha the Bear. Having long been dubbed one of the drug capitals of Central Asia, Kalashnikov-wielding soldiers guarded cafés after dark. An ancient Silk Road route in use for millennia, the modern Pamirsky Trakt was completed in 1937. From Osh, the red soil highway ascends to the windswept mud-brick hamlet of Sary Tash, a major stopover on the smuggling route where the roads to Kashgar in China and the border with Tajikistan converge. Despite covering 45% of its landmass, the self-governing Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast (GBAO) is home to just 3% of the population of Tajikistan. The only Central Asian country to have descended into civil war following the collapse of the USSR, the Pamiris chose the losing side, with the five-year-long conflict leaving approximately 100,000 dead and 1.2 million...

Migrant Workers

Marginalized But Indispensable – What the Crocus City Hall Attack Means for Central Asian Migrants

As previously reported by TCA, in the wake of the terrorist attack on the Crocus City Hall on the outskirts of Moscow which left 144 dead and 551 injured, Central Asian migrants in Russia have been living in a climate of fear. “There is panic, many people want to leave [Russia],” Shakhnoza Nodiri from the Ministry of Labor of Tajikistan said of the outflow of labor migrants. “We are now monitoring the situation; we have more people coming [to Tajikistan] than leaving.” One of the most remittance-based economies in the world, in 2023 official figures released by the Ministry of Labor, Migration and Employment of Tajikistan - often underestimated - stated that 652,014 people left the country to work abroad, largely to Russia. According to the World Bank, in 2022 remittances made by migrants accounted for 51% of the country’s GDP. As anticipated, despite the U.S specifically warning the Russian authorities that the Crocus City Hall was a potential target, whilst seeking to lay the blame for the attack on Ukraine, the Russian Government is intensifying its control over migrants. On April 1, a Ministry of Internal Affairs' spokesperson announced that the regulations will include mandatory fingerprinting and photographing of all foreigners upon entry into Russia, a reduction in the legal duration of stay from 180 days to 90 days, and the registration of migrants and their employers. In addition, whereas in the past a migrant could only be deported following a court's decision, this will no longer be the case. Against this backdrop, on April 3, the Davis Center at Harvard University hosted a seminar entitled, “The Crocus City Hall Terror Attack and Its Repercussions for Central Asians and Central Asia.” Opening the discussion, Yan Matusevich, a Ph.D. Candidate in Cultural Anthropology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, highlighted the fact that the “migration system has been in place for a very long time [and] the Central Asian migrant community in Russia has lived through crisis after crisis. But there are not a lot of alternatives out there,” he started, “so it's really hard to disentangle oneself from that. It’s been difficult for migrants for a long time, but they also know how to navigate the system, as violent and oppressive as it is. “Migrants are also under a lot of pressure to join the war effort, because a lot of Russians have left fleeing mobilization. Migrants are very resilient, though, and paradoxically, because there is such a major labor deficit in Russia, there are a lot of employment opportunities. Bringing in brigades of migrants in uniforms who are completely segregated and work in slave-like conditions would be the Russian ideal, but the problem is the reality doesn't match up given the dependence on migratory labor.” Malika Bahovadinova, a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of Amsterdam, addressed the “ambiguity” migrants face over whether their “status is legal or illegal.” Criminalization of migration laws has been a trend since 2013, she argued, with increased tracking...

Russian-Tajik Singer Upsets Some in Russia with Comments After Moscow Attack

A Tajikistan-born singer who performed for Russia at the 2021 Eurovision Song Contest is under scrutiny in Russia for comments about the brutal treatment of several suspects after the mass killing at a Moscow music venue on March 22. Manizha Sangin has condemned the attack that killed 144 people and said the perpetrators should face the “harshest punishment” allowed under the law. But her statement that some suspects suffered “public torture” after they were detained could be subject to an official inquiry, according to reports. Videos released on social media after the arrest of several suspects from Tajikistan appeared to show that they had been severely beaten. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack at the Crocus City Hall in which gunmen fired indiscriminately at civilians in the auditorium and other areas of the complex. In an initial video, a tearful Sangin said she was glad that her grandmother, who died more than a decade ago, was not alive to witness distressing events in recent years. She also said the “atrocities” in Moscow last month had been met with “public torture.” One response on Sangin’s Instagram feed was caustic: “What did grandma say about not killing innocent people? Or is it only Russians who need to learn patience, and only they are expected to forgive? What would grandma say if innocent people were shot at a concert in Dushanbe?” Facing such criticism, Sangin followed up with another video and a statement in which she clarified that she did not seek to justify the actions of the killers. “It is important not to imitate an inhuman value system, this is what separates us from terrorists,” said Sangin, while urging people not to foment “differences” with Tajiks and other people from Central Asia. Many migrants seek work in Russia despite harsh conditions and discrimination, and there have been scattered reports of increased harassment of Central Asians in Russia since the Moscow attack. Sangin, 32, sang “Russian Woman” at the Eurovision contest and her performance seemed aimed at symbolizing inter-ethnic harmony in Russia. But she was denounced online and promoters canceled many of her concerts after she criticized Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The singer, who has campaigned against domestic violence and has supported charities, said any furor over her recent remarks about the Moscow attack is misplaced. “In no way do I want my words to become a cause of discord in our society,” she said. “My condolences once again to all those affected by this monstrous tragedy. You don't deserve to go through the inflated scandals in the media.”

Russia

Tajik Migrants Facing Xenophobia in Russia After Moscow Terrorist Attack

After the detention of four Tajik nationals suspected of committing the terrorist attack at the Crocus City Hall near Moscow, migrants have faced a wave of hatred and aggression. In Blagoveshchensk, along the Amur River that borders China, unknown persons set fire to a market pavilion belonging to migrants. According to the city's mayor, Oleg Imameyev, the arson was committed "obviously on ethnic grounds." In Kaluga, a group of unidentified men beat up three Tajik citizens on the street, with one of them requiring hospitalization. In some regions of Russia, taxi passengers are refusing to use transportation services if they learn the driver is Tajik. Telegram channel, Baza, reports that after the terrorist attack special units were created among domestic law enforcement to conduct additional checks on foreign citizens. Together with traffic police officers, they will check hostels, hostels, businesses and road routes, as well as other places where migrants congregate. Even those Tajiks who have been living in Russia for many years with their families, some whom have Russian citizenship, have felt an increase in xenophobic sentiment. After it became known that one of the detainees, 19-year-old Muhammadsoobir Faizov, had worked for several months in the Ploschadka barbershop in the town of Teykovo, Ivanovo region, local residents started to threaten the salon's manager and hairdressers. The director of the barbershop, Yamina Safieva, told the Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper that the salon employees' phones "do not stop ringing" with menacing phone calls and messages. Leaders among the Tajik diaspora have recommended that their fellow citizens do not go out on the streets unless necessary and do not to attend mass events. Kyrgyz citizens in Russia have also received similar from their diaspora leaders and government representatives. The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Tajikistan released a statement saying that three citizens of Tajikistan who were named by Russian media were not involved in the terrorist attack: one of them was in Samara at the time of the attack, where he works as a cab driver, and two of them have been living in their home country since November last year. According to various sources, there are about 1.5 million migrant workers from Tajikistan in Russia. As one of the remittance-based countries in the world, in 2021 Tajikistan was also the poorest country in post-Soviet space in terms of GDP per capita, which according to the World Bank was at $878 annually. In Kyrgyzstan, by way of comparison, at that time this indicator was $1,328. At the same time, Tajikistan has a high rate of population growth at 2.7%. Given rampant unemployment in the country - 7.8% in 2023, labor migration is an most important means of livelihood for Tajik citizens.