APRIL 3 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan jailed three Tajik women for spying, potentially straining relations with neighbouring Tajikistan. The women were found guilty of photographing military hardware and passing on the information to Tajik agents. Relations between Uzbekistan and Tajikistan are generally strained.
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(News report from Issue No. 179, published on April 9 2014)
APRIL 6 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Archaeologists in Tajikistan have found several water jugs which they estimate are 2,000 years old and of Zoroastrian heritage, media reported. Tajikistan was one of the homes of Zoroastrianism, a draw for tourists.
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(News report from Issue No. 179, published on April 9 2014)
APRIL 3 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — A Tajik court ordered the state to re-nationalise a garment plant owned by Dmytro Firtash, a Ukrainian businessman held in Vienna on criminal charges, because it had been illegally privatised. Critics of the Tajik government accused it of using Ukraine’s crisis to seize assets.
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(News report from Issue No. 179, published on April 9 2014)
APRIL 4 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Remittances from Russia to Tajikistan rose to $4.15b in 2013, a jump of 14%, media reported quoting the Central Bank. Remittances, especially from Russia, are vital for the Tajik economy.
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(News report from Issue No. 179, published on April 9 2014)
APRIL 5 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Local mullahs in Tajikistan are worried about the increasing number of young men heading off to Syria to join radical Islamist groups fighting against Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad.
Officials in Tajikistan, both government and religious, fear that the young men will return from Syria radicalised and ferment anti-government feelings.
Tajik president Emomali Rakhmon speaks out regularly against the potential drift north of the Taliban once NATO leaves Afghanistan.
Media quoted one mullah in a regional town besmirching anybody who moved to Syria to fight for the rebels.
“Such behaviour is “the way of lost souls and the way of the devil,” said Haidar Sharifzoda, head of the main mosque in the city of Kulyab.
Kulyab is in Khatlon province, Mr Rakhmon’s home region and power-base. It has also previously been considered a bastion of secular thinking. Last month, a 26-year-old man from Kulyab was reported killed in Syria.
The number of Central Asians currently fighting in Syria has been placed at anywhere between several hundred and several thousand. Many are disillusioned migrants working in Russian cities.
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(News report from Issue No. 179, published on April 9 2014)
MARCH 31 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Checkpoints along the disputed Kyrgyz-Tajik border have re-opened for the first time since a shootout between border-guards in January, media reported. The border is disputed between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, one of a number or territorial flashpoints across Central Asia.
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(News report from Issue No. 178, published on April 2 2014)
MARCH 31 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — After a meeting of the Chinese and Tajik defence ministers in Dushanbe, China pledged to help boost Tajikistan’s military, media reported. China has ramped up its support to Tajikistan over the past couple of years. It has built roads, dug mines and helped upgrade the Tajik military.
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(News report from Issue No. 178, published on April 2 2014)
MARCH 28 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Sepp Blatter has spent much of his career as FIFA president fending off allegations of institutional corruption. Even so, Tajikistan must have come as a shock.
Mr Blatter visited Tajikistan as part of a tour of Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan which culminated in a meeting of UEFA, Europe’s governing football body, in Astana (March 25-28).
He was greeted off the plane at Dushanbe airport by Rustam Emomali, son of President Emomai Rakhmon and head of the Tajik Football Federation. Mr Emomalii also owns and occasionally plays for FC Istiqlol, who thrashed FC Ravshan 5-0 in the Tajik Super Cup final with Blatter in attendance.
Not everyone is happy with FC Istiqlol’s dominance, though. In 2011 a match between the same two sides triggered a riot when FC Ravshan’s supporters concluded that FC Istiqlol had bought the referee.
Police arrested 20 people and at least 10 people were hospitalised during fighting between the Ravshan Ultras and the security forces.
Memories of a five year civil war (1992-97) limit opposition towards Mr Rakhmon’s presidency, although anger with the president does appear to be growing. One irk is that he directs much foreign investment towards his hometown of Danghara while other parts of the country struggle for electricity.
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(News report from Issue No. 178, published on April 2 2014)
APRIL 1 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Prices of basic agriculture products such as potatoes, carrots and tomatoes have risen by as much as 60% this year, media reported. A note from the ministry of agriculture said that the price rises were a seasonal issue triggered when farmers try to sell the last of the previous year’s harvest.
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(News report from Issue No. 178, published on April 2 2014)
MARCH 24 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — A joint Tajik-Kyrgyz commission is discussing land swaps to reduce tension along their border, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported (March 24). Tension along the border has escalated this year. A shootout between Tajik and Kyrgyz border guards earlier this year killed several people.
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(News report from Issue No. 177, published on March 26 2014)