Persecution of all dissent continued, with activists, government critics and independent journalists, including those in exile, targeted through intimidation and politically motivated prosecutions. Rights to freedom of association and peaceful assembly were suppressed. Discrimination against women and the Pamiri minority persisted. Domestic violence remained widespread. Torture and other ill-treatment continued to be pervasive. Food poverty affected the majority of children. The corporal punishment of children was expressly banned. Road traffic, coal burning and construction caused high air pollution.
Background
Economic difficulties escalated and were compounded by the Russian authorities’ campaign to reduce the number of Tajikistani migrant workers – the source of significant remittances.
After border tensions with Kyrgyzstan in previous years, bilateral relations visibly improved allowing for successful negotiations and border demarcation.
Human rights information gathering, including by international organizations, remained greatly constrained.
Arbitrary detention and unfair trials
New arrests and closed trials were reported, including under politically motivated charges of terrorism and extremism against members of the arbitrarily banned opposition movement Group 24. Bilol Kurbonaliyev, who was deported from Germany in 2023, was given a 10-year sentence in February for alleged membership of Group 24. Sulaimon Jobirov was forcibly returned from Russia in April and by August he had been convicted and sentenced to six years’ imprisonment on similar charges.
In June and July, several high-ranking politicians and former officials were detained for allegedly conspiring to “violently seize power”. They included the former leader of the government-aligned Democratic Party of Tajikistan Saidjafar Usmonzoda, former foreign minister Khamrokhon Zarifi and former supreme council chairman Akbarsho Iskandarov, journalist and politician Akhmadshokh Komilzoda and politician Shokirjon Khakimov. The authorities had provided no proof of any conspiracy, let alone of any role played by the detainees in it, by year’s end.
In January, reporting on her 2022 visit, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders called on the authorities to ensure the independence and impartiality of the judiciary and protect lawyers from retaliation and harassment.
Freedom of expression
In her January report, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders called on the authorities to drop criminal charges and proceedings against those exercising their rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association. However, civil and political activists, lawyers, government critics and independent journalists, including those in exile, as well as their close relatives, continued to be targeted through intimidation and unfounded prosecution.
In January a court sentenced Shakhboz Sharifbek to five years’ imprisonment for an online video in which he had complained about military officials who had drafted his brother and beaten his relatives.
In August, authorities arrested Akhmad Ibrohim, editor-in-chief of Paik magazine, accusing him of offering a bribe to an official so the media outlet would not be shut down. The Committee to Protect Journalists, a media watchdog, called for him to be released and the charges dropped.
Authorities continued reprisals against exiled opposition activists and other critics by targeting their families. In February, officials summoned the mother of exiled Pamiri journalist Anora Sarkorova and told her that her daughter and her son-in-law Rustam Joni, also a journalist, were under investigation for extremism-related offences, but that they could be amnestied if they returned and asked forgiveness.
In March the exiled opposition National Alliance reported that authorities had been pressuring families to tell their exiled relatives not to participate in protests abroad.
In June a new law prohibited wearing and promoting unspecified clothing that was “alien to national culture”. The law also banned the celebration of Idgardak, a traditional children’s holiday that authorities considered not in compliance with Islam.
Freedom of association
In February a group of UN Special Rapporteurs sent a communication to the authorities, expressing concerns over the dissolution of 700 NGOs in the country in recent years. The government did not make public its response and continued to close NGOs.
Discrimination
Persecution and systemic discrimination of the Pamiri minority continued, with their native Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast affected by further securitization and economic and population decline.1
By February, at least 222 Pamiris had been convicted in unfair, closed trials in connection with the violent dispersal of local protests in 2021.
In March the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention called on Tajikistan to release immediately the imprisoned Pamiri human rights defenders Faromuz Irgashev, Manuchehr Kholiknazarov and Khursand Mamadshoev, considering their detention to be arbitrary.
Women’s rights
In January the official list of occupations banned for women was reduced from 334 to 194, ostensibly due to “improved working conditions”. In February the CEDAW Committee reiterated its call for the authorities to abolish the list altogether.
A joint report published in March by the International Partnership for Human Rights and three Tajikistani NGOs concluded that domestic violence remained pervasive while societal tolerance of it was increasing.
Torture and other ill-treatment
Torture and other ill-treatment remained widespread, while impunity prevailed.
In his annual report published in June, the Tajikistani Human Rights Commissioner focused on persistent prison overcrowding, including the failure to ensure 4m² of floor space per inmate, as mandated by national law, and the high incidence of HIV and tuberculosis.
Official complaints from inmates of being tortured remained infrequent, due to lack of trust in the system and well-documented reprisals.
In August, police claimed Damir Obidov had committed suicide two days after his arrest for alleged hooliganism. His family were not able to see him during his detention and were then denied permission to examine his body during a funeral organized by the authorities. An investigation was opened but no conclusions had been reported by year’s end.
The health of wrongfully imprisoned Pamiri human rights defender Manuchehr Kholiqnazarov, serving a 16-year sentence, was reported to have deteriorated seriously. However, the authorities ignored international calls for his release and the provision of adequate medical treatment.
Children’s rights
The new law on the education of children, enacted in June, expressly banned corporal punishment.
According to a UNICEF report published in June, 78% of Tajikistani children were living in food poverty from 2016 to 2022, including 34% in severe poverty, with very little improvement since 2012. Inadequate nutrition might endanger children’s development and put their lives at risk.
Right to a healthy environment
In May, Tajikistan signed the UN Declaration on Children, Youth and Climate Action. However, the authorities did not encourage public participation in addressing climate and other environmental issues, meaning that climate policies did not necessarily meet the needs of the most vulnerable sectors of the population. The lack of public participation also undermined Tajikistan’s efforts to adapt to climate change.
Air pollution from road traffic, coal burning and construction in the capital city Dushanbe regularly and dangerously exceeded the WHO-recommended safe limit, according to the IQAir air quality platform.
