ADC Memorial: Five stories about Pamir and Pamiris

Anti-Discrimination Centre (ADC) Memorial, published 26 January 2023 on adcmemorial.org, presents a five-story feature on Pamiri peoples living in the Badakhshan Mountainous Autonomous Region (BMAR/GBAO) of Tajikistan. The report states that years of discrimination against Pamiris have escalated into brutal repression following events of 2021–2022. Story 1 (“Pamir 2022: fleeing repression”) reports a mass flight from BMAR villages and Khorog beginning in 2022, with Pamiris seeking asylum in the United States, Canada and European countries because Russian authorities extradite protest-supporters to Tajikistan. Story 2 (“Risks of assimilation and persecution”) frames the region historically from the Great Game partition onwards, describing censuses that record Pamiris as Tajiks, underrepresentation in government, and the highest unemployment rate in Tajikistan. It states that the 2012 events saw information blockade and militarisation, and that from November 2021 “dozens killed during peaceful protests, hundreds injured, hundreds detained … some already sentenced to huge — up to lifelong — terms in prison.” Story 3 (“Pamir languages as a cause for persecution”) names Shugnan, Rushan and Yazgulyam as southeast-Iranian languages, and reports that in December 2022 Muzaffar Muborakshoev and Khushruz Jumayev (Khushom Gulyam, 23) of the “Nomus” public organisation were sentenced to 29 and 8 years for cultural-linguistic activism. Story 4 (“Children of Pamir”) reports on 2021–2022 internet blockade cutting off Pamiri university applications and names Ulfatkhonim Mamadshoeva as the only woman convicted. Internal source references: personal archives of Pamiri activists, named photographers (Ninara, starcom68).