A 2019 annual report on religious freedom worldwide, released by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) on April 29, recommends that the State Department include Tajikistan alongside Iran, Pakistan, Russia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and others on a list of the worst violators of religious freedom — the so-called Tier 1 "countries of particular concern” (CPCs).
These recommendations reflect concern that the Tajikistani government “continued repressive policies, suppressing displays of public religiosity and persecuting minority communities in 2018.”
According to the report, religious freedom conditions in Tajikistan last year trended the same as in recent years.
Authorities reportedly pursued a crackdown on various attributes of faith, including restrictions on wedding and funerary banquets, and pursued extralegal bans on beards and hijabs. Higher Islamic religious education was all but decimated, and updates to the country’s 2009 religion law resulted in the closing of more than 2,000 mosques in the last two years, the report says.
Under the guise of a struggle against religious extremism, the government reportedly continued to torment former members of the banned Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT), sentencing rank-and-file former party members to extensive jail time and extraditing former party elites from abroad; the party’s legal existence was part of the country’s post-civil war peace treaty.
Based on these concerns, in 2019 USCIRF again finds—as it has since 2012—that Tajikistan merits designation as a “country of particular concern,” or CPC, under the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA).
The U.S. Department of State designated Tajikistan as a CPC for the first time in February 2016 and did so again most recently in November 2018. Nevertheless, the State Department immediately issued a waiver against any related sanctions on Tajikistan “as required in the ‘important national interest of the United States.’”
USCIRF recommends that the State Department redesignate Tajikistan as a CPC under IRFA and lift the waiver.
Recommendations to the U.S. Government:
• Condition U.S. assistance to the Tajikistani government, with the exception of aid to improve humanitarian conditions and advance human rights, on the government reforming the 2009 religion law and improving conditions of freedom of religion or belief;
• Work with the international community, particularly during Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) events on countering terrorism, to include private and public criticism of Tajikistan’s approach to regulating religion and countering extremism—including its classification of the IRPT as a terrorist group;
• Press for at the highest levels and work to secure the immediate release of individuals imprisoned for their peaceful religious activities or religious affiliations and press the Tajikistani government to treat prisoners humanely and allow them access to family, human rights monitors, adequate medical care, and lawyers, and the ability to practice their faith;
• Ensure continued U.S. funding for Radio Ozodi, contingent on its compliance with international standards of journalistic objectivity, so that uncensored information about events inside Tajikistan, including those related to religious freedom, will be disseminated.
USCIRF is an independent, bi-partisan commission advising the President, Congress and the Secretary of State on international religious freedom issues. In its Annual Report, USCIRF describes threats to religious freedom around the world and recommends to the State Department countries for designation as “countries of particular concern” (CPCs) for engaging in or tolerating “systematic, ongoing, egregious violations.” USCIRF also recommends to the State Department that non-state actors cited for similarly severe violations be designated as “entities of particular concern” (EPCs). This year, USCIRF has recommended 16 countries for CPC designation and five entities for EPC designation. Also, USCIRF placed 12 countries on its Tier 2 list, meaning the violations meet one or two, but not all three, of the elements of the systematic, ongoing, egregious test for CPC status.
