Jamestown: Tajikistan bans leading opposition party (IRPT)

The report states that on 28 August 2015 Tajikistan’s Ministry of Justice declared that the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT) was “no longer a republican party”, giving the party ten days to shut down operations. According to the report, the ministry cited Article 3 of the Law on Political Parties, which requires parties to operate in “most regions, cities and districts” of the country, and argued that IRPT office closures in 58 districts showed it no longer represented the people. The report traces the party’s history: founded in the late Soviet period, it fought on the opposition side in Tajikistan’s 1990s civil war, and under the 1997 peace deal opposition forces received 30 percent of government posts. The report states that since then President Emomali Rahmon’s government has marginalised, removed, imprisoned or killed almost all former opponents, and that in the March 2015 elections the IRPT lost its two parliamentary seats after failing to cross the five percent threshold. According to the report, IRPT leader Muhiddin Kabiri was in self-imposed exile after state newspaper Jumhiriyat accused him in June of illegally buying property in 1999. The report details a state-orchestrated campaign against the party: closures of its publishing house Muattar and its central office, sexual impropriety allegations, sermons by state-sanctioned imams warning against voting for IRPT, and official attempts to link the party to Islamic State fighters in Syria and Iraq.