HRW World Report: TJ chapter

Human Rights Watch’s World Report 2024 chapter on Tajikistan (events of 2023), published in January 2024, documents continued repression of independent voices, NGO closures, detentions of bloggers, and restrictions on religious organisations. The chapter reports that Tajik authorities announced closure of 239 NGOs in the first half of 2023, following over 500 closures in 2022, and that at least five organisations were shut down in the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region (GBAO) in May, including the Pamiri Lawyers’ Association. In January a Dushanbe district court liquidated the Independent Center for Human Rights Protection (ICHPR). The report states that in January 2023, German authorities deported political activist Abdullohi Shamsiddin, 33, who was subsequently convicted in March on charges of “public calls to violent change of the constitutional order” and sentenced to seven years. In August 2023, Belarus extradited Nizomiddin Nasriddinov, a Group 24 member. The document reports that 205 GBAO residents had been sentenced following closed trials connected to 2021-2022 protests, with 11 life sentences, 85 terms of 10-29 years, and 53 terms of 1.5-9 years. In August the Supreme Court rejected Jehovah’s Witnesses’ appeal against a 2007 ban. The Tajik Committee on Women and Family Affairs received 1,075 domestic violence complaints in H1 2023. In May police arbitrarily detained at least 8 LGBT activists. UN special rapporteurs Nazila Ghanea and Fernand de Varennes are cited.