Tajikistan — Media Sustainability Index — http://www.irex.org/sites/default/files/u105/EE_MSI_2012_Tajikistan.pdf

IREX

Источник: http://www.irex.org/sites/default/files/u105/EE_MSI_2012_Tajikistan.pdf

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has added Belarus to its list of «Enemies of the Internet.»

In a report issued on March 11 to mark World Day Against Cyber-Censorship, the Paris-based media watchdog said Belarusian authorities tightened their grip on the Internet over the past year to curb what it called «revolution via the social media.»

The report said President Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s government arrested some Internet users and bloggers and cut off access to websites in response to growing discontent bolstered by an unprecedented economic crisis. It also used Twitter to send messages aimed at intimidating demonstrators.

«The Internet was blocked during the series of ‘silent protests.’ We saw an increase of the filtering as well, with more and more websites rendered inaccessible and some websites the victims of cyberattacks,» RSF spokeswoman Lucie Morillon told RFE/RL. «Plus, there’s a lot of Internet users and bloggers who were arrested. We also saw another law which took effect in early January which gives the regime more Internet surveillance and control powers.»

RSF’s 2012 list of «Internet Enemies» includes 12 countries, among them Iran, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Syria.

These countries combine cybercensorship with Internet access restrictions, tracking of cyberdissidents, and online propaganda.

Bahrain Also Added

Bahrain was this year’s other addition to the list of «Internet Enemies.» Following protests inspired by the Arab Spring, authorities in the tiny Gulf kingdom implemented an effective news blackout that involved arresting bloggers and Internet users — one of whom died in detention — and disrupting communications.

The report notes that Iran announced the launch of a national Internet and helped Syria hack into social networks to collect information about users’ activities as part of Damascus’ bloody crackdown on protests.

Two countries, Kazakhstan and India, were also singled out for their worsening Internet freedom and placed «under surveillance.»

The RSF report accused Indian authorities of stepping up Internet surveillance since the Mumbai bombings of 2008.

Kazakhstan was blamed for «turning its back on all its fine promises» made in 2010, the year it held the rotating presidency of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

«In 2011, we saw a social protest movement that was dealt with very violently by the authorities,» Morillon said. «I’m talking about the situation that happened when the oil workers’ strike actually resulted in an uprising. Authorities decided to completely cut the Internet around the area, which was unprecedented. This was followed by the blocking of news websites. And in December, a decree was adopted that increased the repression and surveillance at cyber cafes, for instance.»

Positive Trends Noted

Countries «under surveillance» include Egypt, Russia, Turkey, Thailand and, interestingly, France, where authorities continue to enforce stringent measures against illegal downloading and have taken recent steps to filter Internet traffic.

According to RSF, Internet freedom globally receded in 2011, largely due to crackdowns in response to the increasing use of the Internet and social networks as tools for protests.

But its «Enemies of the Internet» report did note positive trends in several countries.

In Myanmar, the military junta released some bloggers and unblocked news websites as part of an apparent thaw.

The media watchdog also welcomed a relaxing of Internet restrictions in Venezuela, where a 2011 law feared to limit Internet freedom has so far proved harmless, and in Libya, where the overthrow of Muammar Qaddafi ended an era of Internet censorship.

RSF removed both countries from its list of nations «under surveillance.»

Claire Bigg, RFE/RL

Источник: http://www.rferl.org/content/belarus_enemies_of_the_internet/24512829.html

DUSHANBE — Facebook and several independent news websites remain blocked in Tajikistan, and an official has suggested the cutoff may be linked to potential national security concerns.

Access by Tajiks to Facebook and the Russian-language sites centrasia.ru, tjk.news.com, zvezda.ru, and maxala.org has been cut off since March 3, apparently in response to an order from the state communications agency.

Tajikistan’s representative to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), said in a statement that Internet sites and media have to be «accountable» for their actions.

The statement, from envoy Nuriddin Shamsov, also said government has a duty to provide national security and «combat cybercrimes.»

Earlier this week, the OSCE called on Tajikistan to end the Internet blocks, calling the development «worrying.»

With Asia Plus reporting

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Источник: http://www.rferl.org/content/tajik_envoy_osce_cites_crime_facebook_news_sites_still_blocked/24510537

An online social network for Muslims around the globe? That’s how Salamworld, a private firm with origins in former Soviet republics, promotes itself.

Salamworld says that when it goes online in August, it will be unlike Facebook or other social networks because it will be «halal» compliant — in accordance with Islamic principles.

Salamworld also plans to provide Islamic content to its users — including an online Islamic library, podcasts of sermons by Islamic scholars, and video games created «by Muslims for Muslims.»

With its first offices at Moscow’s Islamic Cultural Center and in Cairo, and with a new headquarters in Istanbul, Salamworld says it wants to attract 30 million Muslim users within three years.

But some Muslims express concerns about Salamworld’s apparent links to Moscow and governments of other former Soviet republics. They also want to know who provided the firm’s $50 million in start-up capital — still undisclosed despite company pledges to eventually release the names of what it says are «private businessmen in Kazakhstan.»

Afghans have an inherent distrust for any Moscow-linked project purporting to be Islamic, says Noori Wali, who heads Afghan German Online, a website for expatriate Afghans around the world.

«As a Muslim and as an Afghan, I think it is a plot that by no means would benefit Islam,» Wali says. «On the contrary, it would damage Islam. Using the ways they have known over the years, they want to spoil Islam and damage its reputation.»

Azerbaijan’s «donkey blogger,» Adnan Hajizada, who was imprisoned for a year on hooliganism charges after satirizing Azerbaijan’s government in 2009, says he has heard fears expressed about who is behind Salamworld.

«I still think it is a business project, but I also heard from some Muslims on Facebook that they are not going to join the Salamworld network because they fear this is a network created by some forces that want to identify active Muslims in different parts of the world and, later, do surveillance on them, or persecute them, or things of that sort,» Hajizada says. «However, I do not possess any proof [of that.]»

Kremlin Connections

The identities of Salamworld’s executives is the source of much of the concern. The company’s director-general is Abdul-Vahed Niyazov, who also heads the Moscow-based Islamic Cultural Center, a public division of Russia’s official Council of Muftis, a Kremlin-linked body.

An ethnic Tatar, Niyazov has a long history of ties to the Russian authorities and was elected to the State Duma in 1999 as a member of the Unity bloc, which later became Prime Minister and President-elect Vladimir Putin’s ruling United Russia party.

He has spent the past year trying to build support among Muslim leaders around the world. Traveling across North Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Europe. Niyazov has won support from authorities like Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Said Aqil Siraj, the leader of Indonesia’s largest Muslim organization, Nahdlatul Ulama.

Niyazov declined to speak to RFE/RL, referring questions about Salamworld’s «no politics» policy to his spokesman, Yavuz Selim Kurt, who insists the firm is apolitical and has no government ties or agenda.

«We say no politics. This means no politics for us. We are not in favor of any party. We are neutral. Everyone may express themselves freely, but Salamworld is not [getting involved] in any political discussion,» Kurt says.

«We are just providing a service for users. They may have political ideas. They may express themselves freely,» he adds. «However, we will have some criteria. There will not be any [promotion of] violence. There will not be any terrorist statements or expressions, and there will not be anything against humanity and human rights.»

Pushing ‘Official Islam’?

Salamworld’s vice president, Akhmed Azimov moved from his native city of Makhachkala, capital of Russia’s republic of Daghestan, in 1998 to study at St. Petersburg State University. He moved to Moscow after completing his studies in St. Petersburg, and now serves as the vice president of the Council on Nationalities Affairs under Moscow’s municipal government. He also coordinates the Expert Board of the Russian Council of Muftis.

Elcin Asgarov, an Azerbaijani citizen who is a Salamworld board member, also has government ties. Until last year he served as deputy chairman of Baku’s State Committee for Work with Religious Organizations, the body that supervises religion in Azerbaijan.

In that government post, Asgarov worked against the politicization of Islam, using the parliament’s official newspaper to accuse the Islamic Party of Azerbaijan and its leadership of «sabotage against our nation and statehood» after they had criticized President Ilham Aliyev and had protested a ban on head scarves in schools.

Working for Salamworld, Asgarov traveled to Iran last year to discuss cooperation with the offices of the Grand Ayatollah Naser Makarem Shirazi, and with Iran’s ministries of Communication, Youth, and Sports. Kurt says the firm now plans to open a Tehran office.

Salamworld’s leadership also includes other prominent Muslims and businessmen from Russia, Azerbaijan, Daghestan, and former Soviet republics in Central Asia.

The chief editor of the website’s Islamic content is Elmir Guliyev, author of a Russian interpretation of the Koran. Russia’s Council of Muftis has also signed a memorandum of understanding with Salamworld.

…Or Infiltration?

There’s a rich history of government infiltration into technology companies, notes Simon Davies, a fellow at the London School of Economics and director of Privacy International, either by starting companies that achieve market status or by gaining a controlling interest, because of national security interests.

The Kremlin associations of the Salamworld leadership raises suspicion, Davies says. «I was a bit skeptical at first and my instinct was this is just a front for a financial investor who is tapping the political motivation. But it sounds like it could be more than that. They seem to be playing a two-handed game here. This is intriguing. Definitely a political stitch-up. There is definitely an intent here to infiltrate.»

But Kurt, the Salamworld spokesman, insists the project is nothing more than a commercial venture seeking profit for its unnamed investors by tapping into a growing global market for Islamic products.

With additional reporting by RFE/RL’s Azerbaijani and Tatar-Bashkir services and Radio Free Afghanistan

Ron Synovitz, Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Источник: http://www.rferl.org/content/salamworld_social_network_aims_to_attract_worlds_muslims/24510469.html

Officials in Tajikistan are heaping new confusion onto the ongoing shutdown of Facebook. While users triumphantly explain to each other how to access the site through proxy servers, a group close to President Emomali Rakhmon has suggested that Tajikistan should build its own social network to promote “the ideals and national values of the Tajik people.”

The state agency in charge of IT and telecommunications has claimed the March 2-3 block – condemned by a Tajik Internet lobby and US-based Freedom House – is “temporary” and for “prophylactic maintenance.”

Internet service providers have said they were ordered to block Facebook last weekend, along with three or four news portals, by the state Communications Service, after one of the portals published an article severely criticizing Rakhmon and his government. When queried by news agency Asia-Plus, the head of the service, Beg Zukhurov, denied any order to block Facebook, but said the authors of offensive online content “defaming the honor and dignity of the Tajik authorities” should be made “answerable.” Tajikistan frequently uses libel cases and extremism charges to silence critical journalists.

Zukhurov promised to restore the Facebook connection “soon.” (Meanwhile, what seems to be a copy of his order is circulating on – you guessed it – Facebook.)

Now, the head of the youth wing of the president’s party says his organization has decided to build its own Facebook for Tajikistan.

«On the website that’s being created preference will be given to the ideals and national values of the Tajik people, and it will serve as a platform for Tajik youth to exchange opinions,» the chairman of the People’s Democratic Party’s youth wing, Adham Mirsaidov, told Asia-Plus.

That might remind some readers of Uzbekistan, where the government launched its own tightly controlled social-networking platform last September. But even Uzbekistan, which has blocked hundreds of websites including the Uzbek-language version of Wikipedia, allows Facebook to function.

Asia-Plus readers seemed uninspired by the idea of a Tajik “Facebook” controlled by the governing party. To Mirsaidov’s search for funding, one wrote to ask why someone in impoverished Tajikistan should spend money on a new web platform when there already exists a successful one that has connected people all around the world.

George Camm, EurasiaNet.org

Источник: http://www.eurasianet.org/node/65097

Washington — As the United States engages with the countries of Central Asia, encouraging greater regional economic integration, it is not facing a choice between advancing its security relationships and promoting issues like human rights, says the top U.S. diplomat to the region.

Speaking January 25 at the forum of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Robert Blake acknowledged that the Obama administration is balancing competing priorities in the region, such as combating drug trafficking and terrorism while also promoting economic integration, human rights and good governance.

“We do not see our engagement with Central Asia as an either-or choice between developing security relationships at the expense of core values like human rights. Progress on one issue can help reinforce, or create incentives for, progress on other issues,” Blake said in his prepared remarks.

The U.S. effort to strengthen its relationships with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan “should not impinge upon our strong support for democratic development and universally recognized human rights,” he said.

In all five nations, the Obama administration’s engagement is consistently focused on “political liberalization, good governance, civil society capacity building and addressing human rights concerns,” as well as other interests such as nuclear nonproliferation, energy, economic development and educational exchanges, he said.

He added that U.S. officials are engaging not only with the governments in the region, but also with civil society groups and the people themselves through such avenues as the annual bilateral consultation process.

“These consultations are a face-to-face, structured dialogue based on a jointly developed agenda that promotes candid discussions on the full spectrum of bilateral issues, including human rights, religious freedom, science and technology collaboration, economic development, defense cooperation and other subjects either side would like to discuss,” Blake said.

The Obama administration sees its vision for transition in Afghanistan in 2014, when Afghans will assume full security responsibility for their country, as a working strategy that can be expanded for the broader region, he said. Blake said Central Asian support for Afghanistan’s economic and political development is very much in those countries’ own interests.

“A peaceful, stable, prosperous and democratic future for the Central Asian states is directly linked to the prospects for peace, stability, prosperity and democracy in Afghanistan,” he said.

The United States is promoting greater economic integration in the region and strongly supports the New Silk Road project, a long-term economic vision to transform Afghanistan into a hub of transport and trade, connecting markets in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia.

“Our hope is to encourage all of the countries of the region and beyond to help build a network of roads, bridges, pipelines and rail lines to facilitate the goal of embedding Afghanistan more firmly into its neighborhood and helping Afghanistan realize its goal of creating an economy based more on trade than aid,” Blake said.

“If Afghanistan is firmly integrated into the economic life of the region, it will be better able to attract private investment, continue to develop and benefit from its vast mineral resources and provide increasing economic opportunity for its people, men and women alike,” he said.

Along with the regional benefits from a stable, secure and prosperous Afghanistan, Blake said, Central Asia’s significant energy resources also offer “a motivating factor for regional economic development and integration.”

However, he said, intraregional trade has been “lagging” due to the need for Central Asian countries to overcome bilateral obstacles such as border crossings and tariffs, as well as internal problems like corruption, contradictory foreign investment rules and “a less-than-transparent and unpredictable regulatory environment.”

Blake said the Asian Development Bank-led Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation program (CAREC) offers an important regional coordination mechanism. The program “envisions a transformation of the region through transport corridors and energy infrastructure in order to sustain economic growth,” he said.

“We hope the Central Asian states will continue to work independently, through CAREC, through other institutional arrangements and with partners like the United States to reduce the barriers to trade and transportation so that greater regional economic integration will become a reality,” Blake said.

(This is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/iipdigital-en/index.html)

Stephen Kaufman

Источник: http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/iipdigital-en/index.html

By Tom Balmforth

MOSCOW – A Tajik opposition activist is in intensive care after being attacked in central Moscow and stabbed with a knife several times by an unidentified attacker late on January 12.

Dodojon Atovulloev, a 56-year-old Tajik dissident journalist in exile and outspoken critic of Tajik President Emomali Rahmon, has undergone surgery in Moscow’s Sklifosovsky Hospital.

A brother-in-law who lives in Moscow, Doro Zabehov, told RFE/RL’s Tajik Service that Atovulloev had been «under constant threats and pressures» for years.

«Even since he left Tajikistan, he has been persecuted,» Zabehov said. «We knew there were constant risks to his life, but he would never talk about them. He wouldn’t tell us who his enemies were, so I won’t speculate.»

Police discovered Atovulloev with two knife wounds on Komsomolsky Prospekt in central Moscow.

Contracted Attack?

An unidentified police official told the Interfax news agency that the attack may have been contracted. The source said someone had arranged to meet Atovulloev on his own at the «Viadzhio» Italian restaurant near his house, where he was attacked.

Atovulloev’s driver indicated that he last saw Atovulloev’ when he dropped him off at home earlier that evening.

“We went to two places and then I took him home,» he said. «He went in. Then I got a phone call last night and we all went to the hospital.”

The police have launched a criminal case under legislation covering the “premeditated infliction of grievous bodily harm.”

Police apprehended a man who was found with blood on his hands within hours of the attack but released him after concluding that he was not connected to the attack. Interfax quoted a Moscow police spokesman as saying that closed-circuit television footage had cleared the suspect of involvement.

There are no other known suspects at this time, police said.

‘Colorful Figure’

Police are also analyzing CCTV footage and will question Atovulloev once his condition improves.

Atovulloev left Tajikistan in December 1992. He has since lived mainly in Moscow, but spent one year in Germany as well.

He has remained active as a journalist critical of the Tajik authorities throughout.

Atovulloev last visited Tajikistan in 2004, but left abruptly after three days under threat of arrest.

He is the owner of “Charogi Ruz,” one of Tajikistan’s first independent newspapers, which is critical of President Rahmon.

Daniil Kislov, editor in chief of Ferghana.ru, a Moscow-based independent Central Asian news website, told RFE/RL’s Russian Service that Atovulloev’s safe haven in Moscow has long been an irritant for the Tajik government.

«Dodojon Atovulloev has become a dissident who is inconvenient for the regime [in Tajikistan] and he remains one of Rahmon’s uncompromising enemies in the information sphere,» Kislov said. «He has always used the strongest terms and definitions with regard to the Tajik president, openly calling him a drug baron and an alcoholic.»

Recently, he was one of the most outspoken critics of Rahmon during the spat between Russia and Tajikistan in November over the jailing of two pilots, one of them Russian, in Dushanbe.

Atovulloev was reportedly the first to suggest that the pilots were jailed because the son of a relative of the Tajik president had been arrested in Moscow.

Fierce rhetoric between the two countries followed and Moscow deported hundreds of Tajik migrant workers. Tajikistan eventually pardoned the two pilots, and the criminal case on charges of drug trafficking was subsequently dropped against the son of a Tajik official in Russia.

Dushanbe has requested Atovulloev’s extradition numerous times, but Russia has refused.

Atovulloev is a colorful figure in the Tajik opposition and gained a reputation in the 1980s as a “breath of fresh air” for his articles in the periodical «Javononi Tojikiston» («Tajikistan’s Youth»), which were critical of the authorities and stood out against the otherwise monochrome local Soviet press.

Contacted by RFE/RL’s Tajik Service, Tajik lawmaker Suhrob Sharipov downplayed Dodojon’s role and impact, calling him one of many opposition figures living in Russia.

«Dodojon Atovulloev doesn’t have any weight as a political figure; he has no impact on Tajikistan’s politics,» Sharipov said. «He is an opposition figure, a journalist who left for Russia many years ago and has been working there since. I don’t see any reason why [Tajikistan] would want to assassinate him.»

with additional reporting by RFE/RL correspondent Farangis Najibullah and RFE/RL’s Tajik, Russian, and Uzbek services

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Источник: http://www.rferl.org/content/tajik_opposition_leader_atovuloyev_stabbed_moscow/24450461.html

Following a diplomatic faux pas that enraged Russia, the knives seem to be out for Tajikistan’s long-time president, Imomali Rahmon. Various media outlets in Dushanbe have carried harsh commentaries concerning Rahmon’s administration in recent days, presenting an unusual and serious challenge to top authorities in Dushanbe.

The trigger for the media barrage was the Tajik government’s embarrassing confrontation with Moscow earlier in November. After sentencing two Russian charter airline pilots to 8½-year prison terms for smuggling spare engine parts, Dushanbe suddenly backtracked and released the pair when Moscow responded by rounding up Tajik migrant workers for deportation. The Kremlin’s fury could have had devastating consequences for the Tajik economy, which depends on migrant remittances for up to 40 percent of GDP. On Internet chat rooms and in taxicab gossip, Tajiks appeared shocked at the way their government handled the situation.

In their November 23-24 editions, the weeklies Asia-Plus, Nigoh, Ozodagon, Millat, along with the Avesta news agency, carried commentaries that catalogued how widespread corruption and nepotism are reportedly driving the country toward economic and political collapse. Ignoring ongoing libel suits that threaten to shut down several of the papers, editorials called for limits on Rahmon’s powers. They also called for the replacement of the president’s top advisers. Although media outlets were careful not to attack the president directly, which is illegal, these boundary-pushing commentaries grabbed public attention in a country where the government maintains strict control over the press.

“The president must replace the personnel in the top echelon of power; otherwise, the latter will ‘unseat’ the president,” opened a 2,200-word editorial in Asia-Plus.

The commentaries took particular aim at ambitious and expensive government plans to construct the world’s tallest hydropower dam, Rogun. Last year, the government strong-armed most Tajiks into making “voluntary donations” – by withholding civil servant’s salaries and students’ stipends – without providing information on how the money is being used.

Rakhmon “does not have a real program to lead the country out of crisis,” said a commentary published by Nigoh. “The nation’s wealth is being distributed among certain groups existing under the aegis of the government, which enjoy immunity from judicial prosecution.” The apparent unfairness of the justice system is causing “massive popular indignation,” said Asia-Plus, one of the most popular news outlets in the country. Of 7,491 defendants tried in criminal cases last year, only two were acquitted, according to the report. “Citizens of Tajikistan do not believe in the purity and independence of the judiciary,” it said.

The Russian pilots’ scandal and the shocking breakout last year of 25 high-profile prisoners, including alleged members of a militant Islamic group, from the State Committee for National Security’s remand center, located a stone’s through from the president’s office, “demonstrate an acute personnel and intellectual crisis,” Asia-Plus quoted Abdugani Mamadazimov, the chairman of the Tajik Association of Political Scientists, as saying.

Members of Rakhmon’s family and top officials from his home province have amassed great wealth under his leadership while the rest of the country sinks deeper into poverty, Nigoh and other commentaries complained.

Since gaining independence in 1991, Tajiks have heard regularly about multi-million-dollar grants from international development agencies, but see no real changes, lamented Asia-Plus. Instead, in the latest United Nations Human Development Index, Tajikistan slipped 15 positions, to 127 out of 187 countries surveyed – the lowest score for any post-Soviet republic. Meanwhile, the government offers young people no option other than to become labor migrants in Russia, an Asia-Plus commentary asserted. “Our schools train slaves,” it said.

Asia-Plus editor Marat Mamadshoev described the media assault as a grassroots reaction to widespread fear that Tajikistan is approaching “the point of no return.”

“The simultaneous publication of articles with similar contents and concerns in several Tajik outlets has nothing to do with a conspiracy. The Russian pilots’ case, followed by the mass deportation of Tajik labor migrants from Russia, has become the last straw that broke the camel’s back. Tajikistan is rolling down a hill,” he told EurasiaNet.org.

“There is fatigue in society. The people are tired of hypocrisy and the authorities’ idleness,” Mamadshoev added.

Asked if the journalists could expect punishment for their bold commentaries, Nuriddin Karshibaev, chairman of the National Association of Independent Media (NANSMIT) said the situation is too tense for officials to take revenge. “The authorities must learn a lesson. The media in Tajikistan are not very strong, but such audacious publications are another sign, even an alarm, indicating concern and the mood of society.”

“There is no need for a witch-hunt,” Karshibaev added, asked if the media onslaught might provoke memories of Russian meddling in the 2010 downfall of President Kurmanbek Bakiyev in neighboring Kyrgyzstan. When Bakiyev angered the Kremlin, the Russian media began bashing him and comparing him to famous historical despots, which opposition groups in Kyrgyzstan took as a sign of support. He was unseated within weeks.

Karshibaev sees no parallel. «The media are expressing what they have to express,» he said.

Editor’s note:
Konstantin Parshin is a freelance writer based in Tajikistan

Konstantin Parshin, EurasiaNet.org

Источник: http://www.eurasianet.org/node/64600

Russian authorities have launched a round-up of Tajik labor migrants with the apparent intent of deporting them. The move is widely seen as retribution for the sentencing of two ethnic Russian pilots in Tajikistan to lengthy prison terms on tenuous smuggling charges.

According to a November 15 report in the Russian daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Moscow is threatening to kick as many as 10,000 Tajik labor migrants out of the country. Already, hundreds of Tajiks reportedly have been detained. Legislators also have called for visa restrictions on citizens of Tajikistan, while Russia’s chief doctor has suggested Tajik migrants should be barred from entering Russia due to concerns they are carriers of infectious diseases.

Any move to restrict the number of Tajik labor migrants in Russia is capable of delivering a gut punch that would cause the Tajik economy [6] to double over in pain. Some estimates put the number of Tajiks working abroad at 1 million, with the overwhelming majority in Russia. Remittances from labor migrants account for as much as 40 percent of Tajik GDP.

The crisis in bilateral relations goes back to the early November convictions by a Tajik court of two ethnic Russian pilots to 8 1/2-year prison terms for smuggling and illegally crossing the border. They had made an emergency landing in March with two Antonov-72 cargo planes. On board was a disassembled airplane engine that Tajik authorities say was brought into the country illegally.

Moscow immediately called the November 8 sentence “politically motivated [7].”
Even before the pilots’ trial, relations between Moscow and Dushanbe had been dicey [8]. Russian officials have long complained that Tajikistan is incapable of stemming the flow of drugs coming out of Afghanistan. Tajik leaders, meanwhile, grumble about Russia’s on-again, off-again assistance to complete the Rogun dam project, and quietly voice displeasure that Moscow isn’t paying rent for its military facilities in Tajikistan.

Moscow’s push-back on the pilot issue is by no means a surprise. President Dmitry Medvedev telegraphed the Russian response soon after the pilots’ sentencing with a warning [9] that Moscow could act “asymmetrically” to the incident. Medvedev issued a cryptic update on November 14, when, during a visit to Hawaii, he told Russian media “this situation looks very odious.”

“I really hope that our Tajik friends will hear or have already heard us and in their final decision will be guided not only by abstract considerations, but the general level of relations,” the RIA Novosti news agency quoted Medvedev as saying.

It is unclear what prompted Tajik authorities to prosecute the pilots, and hand down long sentences. Observers have suggested everything from President Imomali Rahmon feeling slighted he wasn’t getting enough Russian attention to his security services’ desire to keep the valuable airplanes. Some tabloids have speculated that Rahmon is using the pilots as hostages to secure the release of a close relative, Rustam Khukumov, who is said to be imprisoned in Russia on a heroin trafficking conviction.

In any case, attention from state-controlled Russian media has fueled a surge anti-Central Asian sentiment in Russia. Youth groups have picketed outside Tajikistan Embassy in Moscow in recent days, throwing paper airplanes at the building. More ominously, Tajik labor migrant representatives say they are facing increasingly targeted harassment.

Karomat Sharipov of Tajik Labor Migrants, a non-governmental organization, told Gazeta.ru that Tajiks are afraid to come out of their homes and believe police have been ordered “to show no mercy to Tajiks.”

Reports of spontaneous raids on construction sites and dormitories have helped stoke those fears. On November 12, REN TV aired a report showing Russian nationalists breaking into buildings and “smoking out” people of Central-Asian appearance. Police are filmed standing by doing nothing.

Stoking the anger, in early November, Federal Migration Service head Konstantin Romodanovsky said Tajik migrants commit more crimes per capita than workers from other Central Asian states.

Just as questions surround the pilots’ prosecutions in Tajikistan, the ferocity of the Russian response has surprised Central Asia watchers. Fergananews.com Editor Daniil Kislov wrote in a November 15 commentary that if the Kremlin is so upset with Rakhmon, it should target “outlaw millionaires from Tajikistan who arrive in Moscow to spend money made on heroin,” rather than hard-working, “half-beggar” Tajik laborers.

“Taking revenge on the powerless migrants who have come to Russia for a piece of bread is totally shameless and low,” Kislov opined. Instead, Moscow should blacklist corrupt officials who have made their fortunes thanks to their connections with Rahmon.

The Tajik president himself has been mostly silent in recent days. On November 12, he took personal control of the case, announcing, «We have to solve this matter through diplomatic means and within the constitutional laws of Tajikistan, so as not to spoil the alliance and strategic relation with Russia,» local media quoted him as saying. But that has done little to calm fears in Dushanbe that Moscow’s response will have long-term consequences.
Human rights activist Oynihol Bobonazarova, head of Perspective Plus, a legal support center, told EurasiaNet.org she fears Moscow has given a “green light” to Russian nationalist groups to grow more violent.

“It’s like throwing chestnuts into the fire,” she said of the Russian media coverage. “Public figures and opposition leaders should restrain from acute comments fomenting the tension even further. The best option for the time being, in my opinion, is to call a time-out.”

Editor’s note:
Konstantin Parshin is a freelance writer based in Tajikistan

Konstantin Parshin, EurasiaNet.org

Источник: http://www.eurasianet.org/node/64516

Zulfiya Bobojonova and her two teenage sons haven’t left their rented Moscow apartment for nearly a week.

«There are rumors about Russian police detaining Tajiks in the streets and deporting them back to Tajikistan,» says the shopkeeper, who hails from a small city in northern Tajikistan but has worked legally in the Russian capital for the past nine years. «Russian television channels talk about Tajik-migrant issues every night, and it’s just adding to our fears.»

In fact, the reports of migrant sweeps in Russia targeting Tajik nationals are more than rumors. In the week since a Tajik court sentenced a Russian and an Estonian pilot to prison sentences for their unauthorized refueling stops en route from Kabul, Russian officials have rounded up hundreds of Tajik immigrants for possible expulsion.

«Tajiks don’t dare go outside or freely walk in streets right now,» Bobojonova tells RFE/RL. «Everybody is in hiding inside their homes. I didn’t even allow my 13-year-old son to go to school. What if the police detain him, find us too, and deport all of us? People are afraid. Nobody’s going to work.»

The pilots, working for a Russian air-transport company, were handed jail sentences on November 8 of 10 1/2 years each for arms trafficking, among other charges. Their aircraft were also seized.

Afghan authorities impound another airplane with ties to the company at the center of the Tajik-Russian row

The Tajik ruling prompted outrage among Russian politicians and commentators, and put the some 1 million Tajiks living in Russia — many of them migrant laborers who depend on seasonal work there to make a living — in the line of fire.

‘Humiliation’ At Hands Of Authorities

Hundreds of Tajiks have been arrested in Moscow alone, at least 12 have been deported, and many others are awaiting rulings on their possible deportation. Russia’s top public-health inspector, Gennady Onishchenko, has suggested that a full ban on Tajik migrants should be considered because many have been diagnosed with HIV or tuberculosis.

«I work here legally, I have a work and residency permit,» says Usmon Numonov, a Tajik construction engineer in St. Petersburg. «But none of this matters for Russian police now; they are targeting Tajiks regardless of their papers.»

Numonov, too, is too frightened to leave home.

He says that even if police find your documents are in order, «they extort any money you have and then let you go.» He calls the treatment «humiliating.»

«I told my employers that if your government really wants Tajiks to leave, they should tell us openly and officially, ‘We don’t need you anymore, you have to leave Russia.’ They should give us some timeframe — let’s say six months or a year, so we could all return home — without insulting people like they’re doing now.»

Lost Income

Like so many other Central Asian migrant laborers, Tajiks in Moscow are mostly engaged in menial work, loading goods or selling vegetables in bazaars or washing cars.

Dzanish, a Kyrgyz migrant worker at a Moscow automobile factory, says his Tajik colleagues have gone into hiding in because they were being singled out by police for document checks.

«They are picking them all up and deporting them,» Dzanish says. «I’ve seen it with my own eyes. They pick them up at metro stations and bang, they’re deported.»

Tajikistan’s migration chief, Safiullo Devonaev, has said that some 2,000 Tajiks have been deported from Russia since January, a number he says is «much lower than last year.» But he acknowledges that the «detention of Tajik nationals in Russia has increased recently.»

Waiting It Out

The Tajik Embassy in Moscow has set up a hot line for migrants seeking help or information.

Bobojonova and other Tajik migrants recognize that staying indoors to avoid the police is just a temporary solution. They want the crisis to be resolved between Moscow and Dushanbe as soon as possible.

For her eldest son, who loads goods and pushes carts at a Moscow bazaar, not going to work means no income. And that means no money to buy food, pay the rent, or send home to Bobojonova’s elderly mother, who lives in the northern Tajik town of Konibodom.

Like many families in Tajikistan, she is almost entirely dependent on remittances sent from Russia.

«Our eyes are glued to the television to hear any developments,» Bobojonova says. «I’ve never been interested in politics; now, I’m following news programs. We’ve all become like hostages.»

RFE/RL correspondent Tom Balmforth contributed to this report from Moscow

Farangis Najibullah, RFE/RL

Источник: http://www.rferl.org/content/tajiks_caught_russian_crossfire_over_jailed_pilots/24393030.html