Lately experts are speaking more and more frequently about two sources for swelling ranks of religious extremists – jails and labor migration.
Interesting figures and views were mentioned during a roundtable titled “Counteraction against Religious Extremism and Problems of Deradicalization: Exchange of Experience between Tajikistan and France” that took place in the Tajik capital recently.
According to official data, some 12,000 people are currently serving their terms in jails in Tajikistan. Besides, the Russian Federal Service for Executions of Punishments says that according to data for the first half-year of 2017 8,002 Tajik nationals have served their terms in Russian jails.
Experts note that so-called “green” zones have appeared in penitentiary institutions of Russia and other CIS countries. These zones are reportedly controlled by Islamist prisoners.
The second source of religious radicalization of citizens of the Central Asian countries, including Tajikistan, is labor migration.
Experts note that some 26 percent of economically active nationals of the Central Asian countries are working as labor migrants in Russia and they have become reportedly targets for Islamist recruiters.
Meanwhile, Mahrambek Mahrambekov, Academic Secretary at the Center for Islamic Studies under the President of Tajikistan, considers that recruitment of labor migrants in the Russian Federation has shown a downward trend compared to 2013-2015. According to him, one of reasons for the downward trend is presence of Russian military contingent in Syria. 71.7 percent of surveyed labor migrants have reportedly supported that opinion. The survey has been conducted in Russia, Mahrambekov said.
The expert says people recruited in their homelands use Russia just as a transit point for raveling to other countries.
However, labor migrants are also being recruited while working as guest workers in the Russian Federation.
Thus, an article entitled How Can We Explain Radicalization among Central Asia’s Migrants? by Edward Lemon and John Heatherwhaw, in particular, which was published in May 2017, notes that over 80% of the known Tajik ISIS fighters, for example, were recruited while working as labor migrants in Russia. Most Central Asian migrants are literate and semi-skilled, but often work in jobs far below their capability and find themselves exploited by their employers, according to the article.
The roundtable participants also noted that another problem that impedes the fight against the religious radicalism is an ideological conflict between traditional and modern Muslim practices both in Tajikistan and in the Russian Federation.
