Dushanbe has fulfilled its conscription campaign target by April 13, Colonel Faridoun Mahmadalizoda, a spokesman for the Ministry of Defense (MoD), told Asia-Plus in an interview.
According to him, Tajikistan has reached 70 percent of its spring conscription campaign target by Tuesday.
In the territorial cross section the percentage the target reached was: GBAO – 100 percent; Dushanbe – 100 percent; districts subordinate to the center (RRPs) – 85.3 percent; Khatlon province – 65 percent; and Sughd province – 53.3 percent.
The spring conscription campaign is carried out from April 1 through May, and the draft affects able-bodied male citizens in the age bracket of 18 years old to 27 years old who are not members of the armed forces reserve.
The two-month-long effort seeking to enlist young men aged 18-27 for the one- or two-year compulsory military service takes place twice a year, in the spring and in the autumn.\
Young Tajiks can avoid or postpone military service if they are ill, studying at university, an only son, or if they have two children.
Tajikistan’s armed forces consist of Ground Forces, Mobile Forces (paratroopers of the armed forces of Tajikistan), Air Force and Air Defense Force.
Meanwhile, hopes of Tajik society for stoppage of ‘oblava’ practice (illegal military recruitment raids) in connection with adoption of a new military service law did not come true. Every day, information appears on social networks about how unidentified people in civilian clothes forcibly take conscripts into the army. They are reportedly making sweeps of city streets, bazaars and bus stations, rounding up young men who meet the desired criteria to serve their compulsory two-year-long service.
The authorities, however, deny these facts. The Ministry of Defense says that those who are rounding up conscripts are not their people.
Local authorities report a large number of volunteers, and nobody responds to illegal military recruitment raids.
