The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), created by Congress to make recommendations about global religious freedom, notes in its annual report released on April 21 that Tajikistan’s legal environment for freedom of religion or belief sharply declined after the adoption of several highly restrictive laws in 2009.
In particular, the Law on Freedom of Conscience and Religious Unions set onerous registration requirements; criminalized unregistered religious activity, private religious education, and proselytism; set strict limits on the number and size of mosques; allowed state interference in the appointment of imams and the content of sermons; required official permission for religious organizations to provide religious instruction and communicate with foreign coreligionists; and imposed state controls on the content, publication, and import of religious materials.
Annual Report 2021 says the Tajikistani government continued to use concerns over Islamist extremism to justify actions against participants in certain religious or political activities in 2020. As in past years, Tajikistan reportedly used this pretext to crack down on individuals in the religious, media, and civil society sectors.
In 2020, the government conducted mass arrests and interrogations of Islamic leaders, including prominent Sufi Muslim clerics and many who received religious education abroad, the report says, noting that this trend likely represented an attempt by the government to suppress dissent and ensure compliance ahead of the parliamentary and presidential elections by intimidating religious leaders who do not follow officially sanctioned Hanafi practice.
According to the report, the population is predominantly Sunni Muslim—around 86 percent—while Shi’a Muslims, mostly located in the mountainous east, account for roughly 4 percent. The remaining 10 percent includes Russian Orthodox, Protestants, Catholics, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Buddhists, Jews, Baha’is, and Zoroastrians.
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom puts that Tajikistan, Russia, and Turkmenistan on the "countries of particular concern" list.
Meanwhile, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are listed among the “special watch list countries.”
