A video uploaded to YouTube shows an unidentified Tajik official in the yard of a mosque insulting parishioners and demanding that the mosque be shut down.
When parishioners said that they will complain to the authorities and he will answer for insulting, he said, “Yes, I will answer. Shut down the mosque, otherwise I will f… all of you together with mullah. I have warned you for already six months.”
“Go and complain wherever you want! I will say that you are Salafis,” the official added.
Ozodagon news agency, citing a source at the Committee on Religious Affairs (CRA), reports that the official has been identified as Shokirjon Kholdorov. He works as senior specialist on "tanzim" or the regulation of traditions and rituals in the Choryakkoron settlement, Roudaki district.
“The official has already been summoned to the district administration but that mentioned mosque has been functioning illegally,” the source was cited as saying by Ozodagon.
A government campaign to shut down unofficial mosques in Tajikistan appears to be driven by fears some of them may be used to preach Islamic fundamentalism. But critics warn that indiscriminate closures will leave many rural communities without a local mosque simply because they have not gone through a formal registration process.
The country’s religion law limits the number of mosques that may be registered within a given population area. Friday mosques are allowed in districts with 10,000 to 20,000 persons; five-time mosques are allowed in areas with populations of 100 to 1,000. The quotas are higher for Dushanbe, where Friday mosques may function in areas with 30,000 to 50,000 persons; five-time mosques are allowed in areas with populations of 1,000 to 5,000.
