CABAR: How to avoid military recruitment raids in TJ

The report states that, at the start of Tajikistan’s 1 October autumn conscription campaign, officials of military commissariats and internal affairs bodies routinely conduct “oblava” raids to meet conscription plans, and sets out, via interview with lawyer Dilrabo Samadova, the legal framework surrounding these practices. The report describes raids as the illegal detention of conscription-age men in groups of five to ten plainclothes officers who seize young people in public places, shopping centres, taxis, markets and squares, often forcibly entering homes and apartments, with police covering their actions. According to the report, Tajik law allows commissariats only to hand over a draft notification; listing evaders triggers a police search whose purpose is delivery of the notification, not forced dispatch to the army, and transfer of a conscript directly to a commissariat or jamoat is unlawful. The report lists actions commissariat and jamoat staff are not permitted to carry out, including home entry, searches, seizing mobile phones, halting public transport and locking people in barred rooms. It adds that police must wear uniform and identify themselves. The report notes that detained conscripts retain the right to contact relatives, that filming raids deters officers, and that complaints of illegal detention may be filed with the Military Prosecutor’s Office or a court under Articles 149 and 358 of Tajikistan’s Criminal Code.