Almost every year, countries in Central Asia are placed at the bottom of NGO Reporters Without Borders’, annual ranking for the freedom of press. Every country has dropped in ranking, compared to the previous year.

The position of media coverage in Central Asia has never been renowned for its freedom. However, it seems that this year marks a turning point. 

In the NGO Reporters Without Borders’, new report as published on the 3^rd May 2023, it is noted that if ‘the Russian invasion in Ukraine and the deployment of the Kremlin’s propaganda […] has darkened the whole region [of Eastern Europe]’, Central Asian countries have also seen a sharp decline in their freedom of press since last year.

In a ranking of 180 countries, the nations that are in theory the most liberal in the region, such as Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan, are regressing. Kyrgyzstan is undergoing the most substantial evolution by dropping fifty rankings from 72^nd place to 122^nd place. Meanwhile, Kazakhstan fell twelve lines and is now positioned 134^th. Uzbekistan fell by four points (now at 137^th) due to the rise of attacks against the media.

The Remarkable Fall of Kyrgyzstan 

The deterioration of the freedom of press in Kyrgyzstan is evidenced by multiple attacks against journalists since 2022, as well as the promulgation of the law against false information in summer 2021. Under the scope of this law, the Kyrgyz government is intensifying the campaign against Kyrgyz service of the Radio Free Europe, known locally as Azattyk, in demanding the withdrawal of its licence on the 27^th April. At the end of October 2022, the Ministry of Culture blocked Azattyk as it refused to remove a video addressing the confrontations between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, at their border. 

Amnesty International asserts that this decision was a ‘blow to media freedom’, whilst the Committee to Protect Journalists has called it ‘a deeply chilling message.’ Reporters Without Borders speaks of ‘increasingly severe censorship’ in Kyrgyzstan.

Read more on Novastan: Closure of Radio Azattyk sparks discontent from civil society and international human rights activists

Last January, the independent media service Kloop found itself in a similar situation. The Ministry of Culture had threatened to block Kloop’s website if the editors refuse to withdraw an article on the inflating of construction costs by a state agency.

Last November, the journalist Bolot Temirov was extradited to Russia following a politically motivated trial, after he had denounced cases of corruption on his YouTube channel, Temirov Live.

Kazakhstan and Online Censorship

In Kazakhstan, media censorship is issued more discretely by blocking websites that might unsettle power. A report by the Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) indicates that authorities are obstructing access to the Azattyq website, the Kazakh service of Radio Free Europe.

Read more on Novastan: “An escalating manifestation of Russophobia” – Kazakhstan at the epicentre of an information war

From the snap presidential election of November last year till this January the access to the websites of Radio Azattyq and Current Time, another branch of Radio Free Europe, was blocked.

Kazakhstan has also promulgated a law ‘on the mass media’, a pretext to regulate, or even censor, the information that is available on the internet and particularly the information spreading in social media.

Pressure on Journalists in Uzbekistan

As in the previous year, Reporters Without Borders notes that in Uzbekistan, ‘the situation for the media has only slightly improved since the death of President Islam Karimov in 2016, and criticism of the government remains difficult.’ Nevertheless, Uzbekistan has gained twenty-four points in 2022.

Notably, the report indicates that the Uzbek authorities have ‘extensive’ control of the media and that many bloggers have close ties to the government. The country enforces ‘repressive’ laws on the media and ‘widespread surveillance, censorship and auto-censorship’, reports Gazeta.uz.

Read more on Novastan: Pressure from Russia increases on Central Asian media outlets

‘The large and medium media platforms, as well as bloggers with an audience of over 5,000 people, are subjected to intense pressures and censorship,’ as reported to Novastan by an Uzbek blogger with a small audience. ‘However, there are exceptions, with some channels having less than 1,000 to 2,000 subscribers who are also now facing pressure’, he continues.

Another Uzbek journalist with a critical stance on the government tells Novastan about the recent pressure imposed by the authorities upon journalists and bloggers, ahead of the constitutional referendum of the 30^th April 2023. ‘I know of at least three examples where managers of Telegram channels and journalists have been summoned to the State Security Service for a conversation’, he testifies.

Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, Always Bottom of the Ranking

Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, whose political regimes are the most repressive, remain at the bottom of the ranking. Compared to last year, Tajikistan drops one position on the list, now ranking 153^rd place. According to the NGO, the country has transitioned from a ‘difficult’ to a ‘very difficult’ position with regard to its freedom of press. The report notes that more and more journalists are choosing to exile.

Over the past year, repression has intensified against all forms of opposition, particularly in the Gorno-Badakhshan region and against the Pamiris ethnic minority. Certain activists for the community, who have been exiled, have been extradited to their countries of origin and sentenced to long-term prison sentences.

Read more on Novastan: Human rights in Tajikistan: Interview with the UN Special Rapporteur

Turkmenistan ranks 176^th place and remains among the five worst-ranked countries. Reporters Without Borders notes that censorship in Turkmenistan increased after Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow’s son, Serdar Berdimuhamedow, rose to power in March 2022.

For more news and analysis from Central Asia, follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Telegram, Linkedin or Instagram.

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In the far north of Kyrgyzstan’s capital Bishkek, waste piles up every day in what residents call the polygon, a chaotically managed municipal landfill. Men and women work in this heap of plastic and toxic fumes, totally invisible to the general public. Through their initiatives, activists and artists are trying to give these people a voice and dignity.

Called the polygon, the hill, or simply the dump, the landfill located about ten kilometres from the city centre of Bishkek has been the subject of debate in Kyrgyzstan for many years. This huge dump of about fifty hectares, which concentrates all the capital’s waste, has created an array of political, economic, ecological scandals over the years.

Although a new landfill has been promised since 2013 by the municipality, it has still not been built. This is despite a large loan of 11 million Euros from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, already paid to the state. Since then, the polygon affair has been a regular topic in the Kyrgyz media: almost every few months, new episodes in the administrative soap opera take place, with the date of the landfill’s construction being postponed once again.

Conflicts of interest between the municipality and private companies have also been revealed. The landfill is on private land, and recently a Czech company was chosen to operate the waste without any prior tender.

The invisible workers

The polygon thus symbolises the lack of an effective waste management policy in Kyrgyzstan. But behind this admission of failure, people continue to live in the waste and make a living from it by collecting what they can sell to private recycling companies or intermediaries. The number of people working in the landfill is still unknown, but journalists estimate that it is over 500.

Read more on Novastan: In Kyrgyzstan, one in four families lives below the poverty line

Several activists and artists have taken up the cause and are raising the issue of the landfill from a human perspective, launching social and artistic initiatives to raise awareness of the parallel world where society’s waste is collected.

A “hill society” with a thousand stories.

Next to being a municipal dump, the polygon is the workplace of hundreds of men and women. The landfill has its official employees, but also illegal workers, because the site is not fenced off and anyone can enter. Poor and precarious people spend their day collecting certain types of waste and reselling them. Some have been engaging in this work for decades.

At the entry point, located at the road that leads the trucks and tractors to the dump field, a surveillance post is occupied by a single man. Opposite him, a dozen people, sitting on cardboard boxes, gather their days’ worth of waste in large plastic bags. For Lina Tsrimova, director of the documentary La Colline, which was released in 2022, this place is a real society, with its own hierarchy and organisation. “These people are generally very stigmatised in society,” explains the director, adding that “many of them hide the fact that they work there from their families.”

In this documentary film, selected for the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, extraordinary stories are intertwined. “Many of the new arrivals, mainly from the south of the country, are internal migrants,” explains the landfill’s guard. Due to the lack of jobs, they end up working here, sorting and collecting waste. The documentary particularly focuses on the story of Alexander, a former Russian soldier who fought in Chechnya before working at the dump. The approach of the two directors’, Tsrimova and her colleague Denis Gheerbrant, was to give a voice to these workers, allowing them to tell their stories.

More recently, in 2023, the eco-activist association Move Green set itself the task of making one of these invisible workers visible: Tajikane, 63, lives in the village of Altyn-Kazyk and has been sorting rubbish there for 17 years. She says she moved from the Batken region after the death of five of her children, and has no other choice to earn a living than sorting rubbish.

The neighbours of the landfill in daily contact with the pollution and waste

According to Gheerbrant, the place is an exceptional and visually strong space. Indeed, fires regularly break out on the waste heaps and the toxic fumes that emanate from them give the polygon an apocalyptic atmosphere. Additionally, the area is constantly covered by swarms of crows looking for food and trampled by stray dogs.

In several places on the site there are tents and huts built from debris found in the dump. Houses are located nearby, purchased at an attractive price, in the village of Altyn-Kazyk.

Last December, the Ministry of Ecology stated that “liquid toxic substances are accumulating in the northern part of the dump. A lake has formed there. In recent years, its size has increased five to six times. The toxic substances are getting into the groundwater.”

Read more on Novastan: Kyrgyzstan: Poverty hides behind Bishkek’s smog

Farida is one of the invisible workers, living in the village next to the polygon, on the road leading to the dump, about a hundred metres from it. The woman in her forties has neither a swing nor a toy for her son, only piles of empty plastic bottles, cans, tyres, and glass jars by the hundreds. Every day, trucks from the municipal waste collection service or other individuals and private organisations come to her to bring back these stocks of recyclable waste, which she stores and then resells.

Social and artistic initiatives

To help find solutions for the people living near the landfill, artists and activists are organising the Eco Trash festival with the primary aim to raise awareness. Created by the Bishkek School of Contemporary Arts (BiSCA) collective and the Tazar Association, the festival allows local and international artists to present their projects and initiatives. Last October, one of the themes on which the festival focused was the pollution of the Ala-Archa.

One of the people behind the festival is Bermet Borubaeva, an environmental activist in Bishkek and co-founder of BiSCA. She had the idea of building a library for the children of Altyn-Kazyk. Schoolchildren are among the first to be affected by the presence of the polygon next to their houses: many of them work collecting waste instead of going to school.

“This is the only place where children can read books here,” says Borubaeva. “It is also to give them more cultural and social opportunities in life.”

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Three French-Korean brothers have set themselves the challenge of driving from their native Alsace in France to South Korea − a family adventure they share on their Youtube channel. Novastan went to meet them in the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek, where they are working on a number of documentaries on nomadic culture and traditions.

It was in April 2021 that the Philippe brothers hit the road. “The three of us did reunite at our parents’ place, in Alsace, and it hadn’t been the case for a long time“, the eldest of the trio, François Phillipe, explains. At that time, Michel had just completed his studies, François was back from his trip to Turkey and Stéphane left his job.

The plan is to cross part of the globe aboard their 4×4 Nissan Pathfinder to reach Korea, the land of their ancestors. It was an idea that ran over François’ mind, who then had already hitched his way to Turkey one year prior, joined by his brother Stéphane up until Greece.

In Bishkek, while they are busy editing several videos for their YouTube channel, Novastan went to meet them. It has been four months since they arrived in Central Asia. After several months spent in Turkey, Georgia and Iran, they went through Russia to cross Kazakhstan and undertook a journey through Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. But it is in Kyrgyzstan that the three siblings stayed for the longest time, appealed by nomadic life and Kyrgyz culture.

A childhood dream for the family

“We always told ourselves that someday, we would go round the world,” Stéphane Philippe explains. “And today, it is finally really happening!”

“Sons of East and West”, like they nickname themselves on their YouTube channel, felt the need to reconnect with their identity. As dual citizens, they discuss at length the hurdle of identifying themselves at the crossroads of two cultures, but also the richness this situation brings them.

To them, one of the most exciting aspects of this journey is to undertake it with family. “In the future, we will have children, a family of our own, and we will not be able to do it between siblings ever again, so it is now or never,” Michel Philippe discloses. The vlog format on YouTube also seems to them to be a way to create lasting memories.

Nomadic culture and traditions

Indeed, the siblings want to highlight both lifestyles and ancestral traditions. “We can see how the world is modernising, so we want at any cost to film traditions, nomadic life, because it actually is an emergency“, François explains. While passing through Georgia for several months, they dwelled on transhumance practice on a mostly little known to tourists road, even unknown, which earned them recognition from the locals. In Iran, the three brothers spent several weeks in contact with the nomads, in an attempt to discover specificities of their culture.

It is sometimes challenging in countries which gradually open themselves to mass tourism. But through “random” encounters, they nevertheless reach inhabitants who show them the way to their unique history.

Central Asia, a must-see

What is better than Central Asia to discover nomadic lifestyles? Since the beginning of this journey, this is the region they dreamed about − a step they did not want to miss at all cost, as they explain in videos while facing the camera, although it would have been easier to cross Asia Minor in order to reach Eastern Asia. Kazakh and Kyrgyz steppes were worth the travel for the three siblings.

“We really craved to discover Central Asia and its nomadic culture, it was very important for us,” explain the brothers almost in unison. On the programme: a documentary on eagle hunting in Kyrgyzstan, on transhumance, and on the mythical game of kok-boru.

Another milestone − to meet the Korean Diaspora of Kazakhstan, deported since the Stalin era: a very important identity matter. A teaser of the reporting was posted on their YouTube channel, which will deal with Korean traditions that continue to live on in Kazakh steppes.

Not always a simple journey

The travellers-youtubers also open up about their daily challenges to travel. “We are far from being professionals“, one of them discloses. With the journey itself to be organised, the idea to produce full-length documentaries may be constraining. “But we are attempting to progressively become professionals to have a good video rhythm and qualitative content.”

In their videos, the YouTubers do not hesitate to share occasional challenges they meet on the road. Their car breaking down atop a mountain range in Kyrgyzstan, the failure to meet a snow panther, or the struggle to cross terrestrial borders, which sometimes are closed or packed.

“To cross the border between Russia and Kazakhstan took us three days!” Arriving a few days after September 21, 2022, the Philippe siblings were on the border at the same time as thousands of Russians fleeing partial mobilisation. In a video, they describe daily life in the line to the border control, but also the anxiety of these thousands of Russians attempting to escape war.

For more news and analysis from Central Asia, follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Telegram, Linkedin or Instagram.

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Every year, the recruitment of Tajik soldiers, young people of age to perform their compulsory two-year military service, is a real problem for the authorities. In addition to the obsolete and corrupt recruitment campaign, there is a growing reluctance among young men to serve their country, even if it means emigrating to avoid it.

“Deserting” military service means fleeing the bad treatment in the ranks of the army: hazing, deplorable sanitary conditions, violent recruitment, and bribery to be declared unfit. We analyse the structural problems of the Tajik army, itself to blame for its lack of manpower.

It usually starts in the first days of spring and autumn. Conscript soldiers are called to register with the offices of the authorities to undertake their military service, which is mandatory for men aged 18 to 27 in Tajikistan, and will last two years. According to official data for 2019, there are about 600.000 young men of conscription age, of whom 150.000 are unfit for service and 100.000 are out of the country, according to Tajik media outlet Asia-Plus. Each year, only 15.000 to 16.000 recruits are actually called up for the needs of Tajikistan’s armed forces.

But the process never goes as planned. On April 1, local media reported problems with the way the young men are recruited. Radio Ozodi, the Tajik service of the American media outlet Radio Free Europe, explains, for example, that in the Vakhsh region a random “lottery” was held to select those who were to go into the army. The provinces of Sughd, Khatlon and the regions of the Rasht Valley also report pressure on the parents of young people of military age.

A resident of the Khorog region was sentenced to a year in prison on April 1 for running away from his obligation to serve, the Central Asian media outlet Kokshetau reported. “Having received a summons from the military commissariat and repeated invitations from the relevant administrations, he deliberately evaded conscription for fixed-term military service,” the prosecutor’s office said.

Every year, such problems occur, causing a wave of panic among young Tajiks of military age. Recruitment campaigns are conducted quietly and often arbitrarily, and never treat all citizens equally, which has a serious impact on the country’s military forces.

Fear of hazing and poor conditions

The reluctance of Tajik citizens to go and serve in the army is based on the poor living conditions that await them, such as lack of food, problems with military uniforms, poor quality clothes from which it is difficult to choose a size. But the most serious problem repeatedly pointed out by NGOs, especially by the Tajik organisation No Torture, is the practice of hazing.

The NGO has documented 59 cases of torture against military personnel between 2014 and 2016. 11 of them succumbed to the injuries, according to an article by Radio Ozodi, and there are also significant numbers of suicides among conscripts during their service.

Read more on Novastan: Tajikistan – “ethnic cleansing” and repression in the Tajik Pamirs

The Tajik government itself said in a report sent to the UN Human Rights Committee that more than 100 soldiers were killed between 2019 and 2021, mainly due to hazing in the army, the report says.

Faced with violence in the ranks of the army, however, the Tajik state does not compensate the victims or their relatives. For example, in 2014, a 22-year-old soldier was mistreated by his comrades, leaving him disabled. His lawyer then demanded that the army pay about 278.000 somoni (about 23.000 euros), but less than one-fifth of that sum was received by the victim, Russian media outlet Sputnik reported.

Violent recruitment methods

The violent recruitment for Tajik military service culminates in the organisation of raids by the authorities, suddenly taking young men away to their place of service. Eurasianet confirms this, describing young citizens who have just left school being taken away by cars waiting for them. Cabar Asia reports that the cars in which the young men are crammed often have no signs of belonging to the military registration and enlistment office or other state institutions.

Read more on Novastan: How Russia is recruiting Central Asian soldiers for its war in Ukraine

The authorities sometimes go even further, asking the families of young people who have left for Russia to bring them back to Tajikistan to serve in the army, or face sanctions. Tajik migrants represent a numerous diaspora in Russia, reaching 2 million in 2021.

According to the Tajikistan Prosecutor General’s Office, cited by Radio Ozodi, in 2022 alone, 108 young men were prosecuted for evading military service. Radio Free Europe reports that, late last year, Tajikistan’s military call-up season reignited discontent following power cuts and mosque closures by local authorities to force families to let their sons enlist in the military.

Legal uncertainty and administrative corruption

The call to the army in Tajikistan highlights each year the problems that plague the Tajik Republic, namely corruption and inequality. Indeed, the authorities in charge of recruiting young men are suspected of demanding bribes to declare them unfit.

Read more on Novastan: Central Asia scores badly in latest corruption index

The Cabar Asia article shows that it is people struggling against poverty who find themselves massively recruited into the Tajik army, unlike men from the elite who escape more easily. The author points out that: “If the conscription season were truly fair, i.e., if it included all young men without exception, the country’s elite would solve the problem in a matter of weeks. But too great a gap between the elite and young men from ordinary families only exacerbates the problem of poor communication and resentment.”

Numbers of military personnel in Tajikistan are the lowest in Central Asia

Among of the weak points of Tajikistan’s military are the deplorable conditions for pre-call-up and conscripts. The country seems to be paying a price for this, with the lowest number of personnel among Central Asian countries, according to the Global Fire power indicator. Indeed, in 2023, the number of military personnel was only 15,000, while its Kyrgyz neighbor, although less populated, posts a much higher number, with a total of 25,000.

Read more on Novastan: What are the underlying reasons for the deadly Kyrgyz-Tajik border clashes?

The more intense flaring-up of conflicts with Kyrgyzstan in recent years is also deterring more and more Tajik citizens from serving in the military, for fear of being mobilised to defend sensitive borders. Border clashes between the two countries have indeed become more frequent since 2021, due to the militarisation of the borders on both sides. In May 2021, a 19-year-old Tajik border guard was injured, and the latest clashes between the two countries in September 2022 were the deadliest so far, with more than 100 deaths on both sides.

Although Tajikistan is part of the regional military organisation of the Collective Security Treaty (CSTO). together with Armenia, Russia, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, this set-up has proved to be ineffective with the recent resumption of conflicts on the Tajik-Kyrgyz border. Finally, proximity to Afghanistan and the Islamic threat on Tajikistan’s borders heightens tensions, which does not increase the enthusiasm of citizens to join the army.

For more news and analysis from Central Asia, follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Telegram, Linkedin or Instagram.

Written by Emma Collet, editor for Novastan

Translated by Robert Willams from French

The post Recruitment in the Tajik army: a headache for the authorities and hell for the recruits appeared first on Novastan English.

For nearly a year and a half, the Pamiri minority in Tajikistan, who live mainly in the Gorno-Badakhshan region in the east of the country, have been suffering harsh repressive measures at the hands of the government of Tajik President Emomali Rahmon. But this group is not the only one to suffer from the continued authoritarianism of the regime. NGOs, activists, bloggers and homosexuals have also been targeted by the government in recent months, as shown in this overview of the state of human rights in Tajikistan.

On February 16, Radio Ozodi, the Tajik service of the American media Radio Free Europe, reported that, on the recommendation of the Ministry of Justice, the activities of the Independent Center for the Protection of Human Rights were interrupted. This is yet another obstacle to the protection of human rights in Tajikistan, targeting an organization that has been defending human rights for 13 years in the country. A measure “in line with the tactics of administrative and bureaucratic harassment of NGOs in Tajikistan that have been practised for five to seven years now” according to Syinat Sultanalieva, a researcher at the NGO Human Rights Watch.

Tajik media outlet AsiaPlus comments that the Independent Centre for the Protection of Human Rights was one of the few public bodies where it was possible to seek free legal assistance. It dealt with issues such as access to social housing for the population. According to the Ministry of Justice, some 500 public organizations were closed down in 2022 – 350 more than in 2021.

But censorship of civil society does not stop with shutting down NGOs. Bloggers and activists are also victims of accelerating repression. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders, Mary Lawlor, visited Tajikistan from 28 November to 9 December 2022. The crackdown on journalists and bloggers is arbitrary with “little well-founded evidence, following inadequate investigations and trials held behind closed doors,” she told Radio Free Europe journalist Bruce Pannier last December.

Bloggers and journalists targeted by authorities

In recent months, the number of arbitrary arrests of bloggers in Tajikistan has been increasing. Cabar Asia explains that at least three people have been accused of “immorality”. On 18 January, influencer Khabibulo Himmatzoda was detained for five days in Dushanbe for “offensive videos” of a possible sexual nature, reports Radio Ozodi. The same fate befell blogger Saida Latifova, who was fined on similar charges last December. According to the police, she “obscenely insulted other callers during a live broadcast on the social network Tik-Tok”.

Read more on Novastan: Humans Rights Watch continues to be concerned about Central Asia

According to Human Rights Watch researcher Syinat Sultanalieva, “it is clear that the regime is becoming more and more restrictive every year. Where there was a vibrant civil society just a decade ago, the very few bloggers and NGOs still in the country have to find ways to continue their work without being arrested.”

LGBT rights still taboo

In Dushanbe, ten members of the LGBT community were arrested on suspicion of infecting citizens with HIV, Radio Ozodi reported on 15 February.

Read more on Novastan: LGBT community harassed in Tajikistan

Sultanalieva comments: “What was interesting about this article was that the police authorities admitted to ‘monitoring’ LGBT communities in some way, which adds to the rumors about the ‘gay lists’ that the police keep.”  Nevertheless, she confirms that there are still LGBT activist groups in Tajikistan working undercover. For their part, Tajik authorities continue to deny harassment or persecution of sexual minorities.

However, Mary Lawlor said that Tajikistan does not follow the recommendations of international organizations on the rights of members of the LGBT community, because according to Tajik law, these people “offend against the norms of morality and human ethics in the country.”

Moralisation of public life

Cabar Asia notes a reinforcement of conservative moral values in Tajikistan, as the reasons for these arrests are not really specified. Indeed, under the guise of “increasing citizens’ awareness of how to use social networks and preserve culture and national identity”, the government’s objective is to reduce the margin of freedom of expression in the public space.

Read more on Novastan: Tajikistan – the fight against prostitution harms entire population

“The first goal is to increase control over public opinion, specifically those who have the power to shape public opinion,” explains Tajik media expert Abdumalik Kadyrov in the Cabar Asia article. But, by acting this way, he believes that the authorities “have gone so far that they themselves no longer know what they are doing.”

Repression of the Pamiris still continues

Another sign of authoritarian drift is that since May 2022, the Tajik authorities have been targeting members of the Pamiri community, who live mainly in eastern Tajikistan. The government reacted to peaceful protests in this autonomous province by launching a security operation that left dozens dead and hundreds detained.

Read more on Novastan: European reaction to repression in Tajikistan has no effect

According to the Tajik media outlet Pamir Daily, which has been following the trials closely, the president of the Supreme Court described the Pamiri protesters as “leaders of criminal gangs from Khorog and Rushan” [towns in the region where the demonstrations took place]. He said that all suspects had been prosecuted in accordance with the country’s laws. They were sentenced to between one year and life imprisonment. The trials were held behind closed doors, before arbitrary judges and with no transparency.

However, for Syinat Sultanalieva, “it is very difficult to speak of a turning point in the repression. This is probably a brutal show of force to regain control of the region and to send a signal to the rest of the critical people in the country.” But at this very uncertain time in Tajikistan’s history, “the authorities should be held accountable for human rights violations committed by their agencies against ordinary citizens, human rights defenders and others.”

Written by Emma Collet

Translated by William Roberts

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