DUSHANBE, May 25, Asia-Plus – On Thursday May 24, President Emomali Rahmon held a meeting with heads of local administrations, workers of culture and science, experts in art and literature and representatives of religious confessions at the Kokhi Borbad State Complex in Dushanbe.
Some 2000 participants at the conference unanimously approved the bill “On Order of Observing National Traditions and Rituals” that will be submitted for consideration to the Majlisi Namoyandagon (Tajikistan’s lower chamber of parliament).
Telling the conference, Emomali Rahmon dismissed spending huge sums on show-off events held in a family that either rejoices or grieves over certain events in its life as an immoral and wretched practice. He noted that such costly events are in contrary to Koran and Hadis of the Prophet Muhammad.
The president, in particular, noted that people annually spend for weddings and mourning ceremonies on average 4.5-5 billion somonis, while the entire Tajik national budget makes up 3.3 billion somonis (an official exchange rate of the Tajik national currency is 3.44 somonis to one USD).
President Emomali Rahmon also urged the creation of a public charity fund for the poor.
He pointed out that despite annual growth of pensions and social allowances of 1,100,000 families in the country, 500,000 families live below the poverty line. Of 527,000 pensioners living in the country, 9,000 pensioners do not have relatives to support. Besides, on the list of the poor are 118,000 orphan children and 68,000 families without breadwinners.
“Business representatives and all those, who wish, will make donations to the charity fund. The fund’s activity should be extremely transparent and controlled by the society,” Rahmon said, noting that the government will also make donations to this charity fund.
The bill stipulates a maximum number of guests invited, limits the time of a ceremony, the number of cars used to service a wedding and cracks down on mourning ceremonies, curtailing the number of dishes served at a burial feast as well as the number of commemoration ceremonies.
Besides, a special directorate will be set up at president’s executive office to regulate observance of traditions and rituals. Changes will be made to the country’s Administrative Code. Under these amendments, for violating the legislation on order of observing traditions and rituals civil servants will be fined 5,000 somonis, other people will be fined 2,000 somonis, and juridical entities will be fined 5,000 somonis.
Rahmon also noted that beginning on 2008, Tajik Islamic University will be funded from the country’s national budget and its curriculum along with theology will also include secular subjects such as the Tajik language and literature, history of Tajikistan, computer course, philosophy, logic, history of culture, and foreign languages.
The president said that more than 20,000 messages had arrived on his e-mail site in support of his initiative. These measures are not aimed against religion; they fully conform to the Koran and will help improve the living standards of the people, the president said.
Tajikistan has conducted debates on huge expenditures on costly household traditions and rituals in Tajikistan for two months.
