DUSHANBE, May 6, 2009, Asia-Plus — Some 30 women that ran shops in Dushanbe’s Zarnisor market went on huger strike today, protesting against Dushanbe authorities’ decision to demolish the market.
Speaking in an interview with Asia-Plus, the market owner Botourkhon Talbakov said that they would lodge an official statement on holding demonstration against demolition of the market to the Dushanbe mayor’s office today afternoon.
According to him, 650 people worked with the market before it was closed on September 4, 2008. He noted that police today morning evicted all employees from market’s administrative building.
In the meantime, an official with the Dushanbe mayor’s office told Asia-Plus that court’s decision should be implemented unquestioningly.
We will recall that Dushanbe Mayor Mahmadsaid Ubaidulloyev received owners of the Zarnisor market on April 10. Ubaidulloyev said at the meeting that the mayor’s office supported the court’s ruling and noted that in pursuance of implementation of the decision taken by High Economic Court the owners should demolish the market on their own. The mayor also noted that the market owners might participate in construction of new facilities provided for by the municipal redevelopment plan in the place of the market. Ubaidulloyev also charged the Dushanbe agency for construction and architecture to consider compliance of the market’s three-story building with the municipal plan. If the building is fit in with the redevelopment plan, relevant municipal bodies should consider the possibility of using it to place the domestic service center
The Zarnisor market was closed last September following the ruling handed down by the High Economic Court. Dushanbe officials stated the market had been built on illegally privatized property while merchants said the market ran for 13 years and the shops were legal. In late March this year, a group of women merchants held a demonstration in front of the Tajik president”s office asking him to intervene in a controversial property case.
