January 1 – France’s Defense Minister Gerard Lonquet paid a short visit to Tajikistan. Issues related to the current situation in Central Asia and establishment of peace and security in Afghanistan were the focus of the meeting of Gerard Lonquet with his Tajik counterpart Sherali Khairulloyev. During his stay in Dushanbe, French defense minister also visited the place of deployment of the French Air Force contingent. The contingent’s mission is to provide technical support for NATO operations in Afghanistan. The airport serves as a key logistics and supply hub for French troops in Afghanistan.
January 2 – Three men were arrested in Dushanbe in connection with the deadly New Year”s Eve stabbing attack of a man dressed as Father Frost. All the suspects are university students in their 20s.
January 3 – Five persons were arrested in Dushanbe for membership in the outlawed extremist religious Hizb ut-Tahrir group. The detainees are men aged 30 to 38 and one of them has previous conviction for calls for extremist activity. Their office was located in one of apartment buildings on the Nemat Qaraboyev Street and some 100 copies of books and more than 200 leaflets with extremist content as well as 116 CDs propagating activity of the Hizb ut-Tahrir group were found in the apartment;
– A large arms cache containing one assault rifle Kalashnikov, two RGD-5 hand grenades, two detonators, 25 bullets of 7.62 mm caliber, 20 bullets of 4.45 mm caliber and other ammunition was discovered in the Shur area, Tavildara district.
January 4 – Tajik President Emomali Rahmon reshuffled posts in the government, most notably naming a new interior minister, justice minister, and heads of the Security Council and of the presidential administration.
January 6 – An alleged weapon trafficker was arrested in Dushanbe when he was attempting to sell a large consignment of weapons and ammunition. Undercover law enforcement officers posed as gun buyers and unemployed M.M., 27, was arrested when he sold to them four assault rifles Kalashnikov, two sub-machine-guns PKT, one grenade launcher, six attached grenade launchers, 21 magazines for assault rifle Kalashnikov, one bayonet, silencer for assault rifle and 2,800 bullets of different caliber for 2,500 U.S. dollars.
January 8-9 – The fourth meeting of the Tajik-Afghan commission for trade and economic cooperation was held in Kabul, Afghanistan. The commission, co-chaired by Tajik Minister of Transport Nizom Hakimov and Afghan Minister of Economy Abdul Hadi Arghandiwqal, considered bilateral cooperation between Tajikistan and Afghanistan in sectors like energy, transportation, agriculture, construction, as well as science and social sphere.
January 9 – Several high-ranking law anti-drug officers were arrested for their alleged involvement in narcotics trafficking. Among them is Faridoun Umarov, the head of the anti-drug squad within the Farkhor police department. He is the brother of the first deputy head of the State Committee for National Security, Mansour Umarov. Also arrested were Major Zafar Mirzoyev, the chief of the department within the Interior Ministry directorate for combating drug trafficking (drug police), and Lieutenant-Colonel Tohirkhon Sherov, the chief of the drug control squad within the Dushanbe police directorate.
January 10 – Two persons were detained in Khatlon’s Qubodiyon district for an attempt of smuggling 106 kilograms of hashish. One of the detainees is the son of retired general who had headed the Special Property Committee in the late 1990s and the other one is the son of diplomat.
January 11 – A multistage operation by officers from the Drug Control Agency (DCA) led to the arrest of drug trafficker in Dushanbe. When searching the drug pusher’s minivan, the drug control officers found 196 packages of narcotic drug that tested positive to hashish weighing some 100 kilograms and two packages of narcotic drug that tested positive to heroin weighing some 2 kilograms. Besides, 5,300 U.S. dollars were confiscated from the drug pusher;
– Shermuhammad Shohiyon, the head of Tajikistan’s Central Commission for Elections and Referenda (CCER), met in Dushanbe with Fazl Ahmad Ma’navi, the head of Afghanistan’s Independent Election Commission (IEC). In the course of the talks, Shohiyon briefed his Afghan counterpart on the activity of the CCER and expressed interest in establishing cooperation with the IEC.
January 11-12 – A special envoy of Chinese President Hu Jintao, Ms. Chen Zhili, who is Vice Chairperson of the Standing Committee of the National People”s Congress (NPC), visited Tajikistan. The visit to Tajikistan was part of Ms. Chen’s tour of Central Asia’s countries that started on January 5 and concluded on January 14. Ms. Chen attended activities celebrating the 20th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and the five nations, including Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
January 11-13 – Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet paid a working visit to Tajikistan. During his stay in Dushanbe, he met wit President Emomali Rahmon and some other high-ranking Tajik state officials to discuss cooperation issues.
January 12 – A Moscow-based Tajik opposition journalist Dodojon Atovullo (Atovulloyev) was attacked in central Moscow and stabbed wit a knife several times by an unidentified attacker. He underwent surgery in Moscow’s Sklifosovsky Emergency Medicine Institute.
January 14 – An operation carried out by officers from the Drug Control Agency (DCA) in Dushanbe led to the arrest of a drug trafficker from the northern Sughd province. When searching his all-terrain vehicle Ssang Yong Musso, the drug control officers found a sack of narcotic drug that tested positive to heroin weighing some 44 kilograms.
January 20 – Tajik DCA director Rustam Nazarov, Afghan Deputy Interior Minister Baz Mohammad Ahmadi, Afghan Deputy Minister for Counter-Narcotics Mohammad Azhar and Daniyar Otorbayev, the deputy head of Kyrgyzstan’s State Service for Drug Control, met in Dushanbe to discuss issues related to strengthening of cooperation in combating drug trafficking. Mr. Jean-Luc Lemahieu, UNODC Country Office Representative in Afghanistan, Mr. Ali Saryazdi, UNODC Country Office Representative in Tajikistan, and Mr. Abdulhomid Norov, representative of the Central Asian Regional Information and Coordination Centre for Combating Illicit Trafficking of Narcotic Drugs, Psychotropic Substances and their Precursors (CARICC) also attended the meeting.
January 23-26 – Mr. Dirk Meganck, Director for Asia, Central Asia and Pacific, European Commission General Directorate for Cooperation and Development led a mission in Dushanbe to review development co-operation between the EU and Tajikistan and explore priorities for enhanced EU cooperation with Tajikistan for the new multi-annual financial framework, 2014 -2020.
January 24 – President Rahmon shuffled government officials in the “economic bloc.”
January 26 – The trial of the case pitting Hoji Akbar Turajonzoda, a prominent Tajik religious figure, against Saidmukarram Abduqodirzoda, the head of the Council of Ulamo (a group of scholars and imams that provides interpretations of religious practice), began in a court of Dushanbe’s Ismoili Somoni district. The next hearing of the case is scheduled for February 6.
January 27 – The government-to-government agreement on technical cooperation between Tajikistan and Germany and the government-t-government agreement on financial cooperation between Tajikistan and Germany were signed in Dushanbe. The documents were inked by Tajik Foreign Minister Hamrokhon Zarifi and German Ambassador to Tajikistan Doris Hertrampf.
January 28 – President Rahmon shuffled law enforcement officials. Four persons were named as heads of departments within the Council of Security and three others were named as heads of the directorates for crime detection, investigation and maintenance of public order within the Ministry of Interior. Besides, heads of police departments in the districts of Farkhor, Qumsangir, Vakhsh, Baljuvon, Hisor and Shahrinav were replaced.
January 29 – Captain K.S., deputy commander of one of military units of the Ministry of Defense deployed in the Darvoz district Gorno Badakhshan was detained on suspicion of having been involved in drug trafficking. A package of narcotic drug that tested positive to heroin weighing one kilogram was confiscated from him;
– A healthy boy was born on a Tajik Air flight from Dushanbe to Moscow. This was the fourth time a baby was born on board a Tajik Air flight since 2007.
January 31 – New Ambassadors of Italy, Denmark, Ireland, Slovakia, Lithuania, Estonia, Israel and Vietnam to Tajikistan presented their credentials to Tajik President Emomali Rahmon.
