Meduza: Alien clothing hijab ban context

Meduza / The Beet feature by researcher Niginakhon Saida and freelance journalist Sher Khashimov, published 29 July 2024, examining the context and consequences of Tajikistan’s ban on “alien clothing.” The article reports that on 19 June 2024 Tajikistan’s government passed a law banning “the import, sale, promotion, and use of clothing alien to the national culture,” with fines starting at approximately USD 740 for individuals and up to USD 5,400 for civil servants and religious figures; the law does not specify what constitutes “alien clothing.” The feature reports a 22 June arrest of a young woman for posting on social media “while dressed inappropriately.” The article opens with the case of “Anisa,” a woman accosted by two police officers near Dushanbe over her light-coloured hijab. It documents historical context: the 1991 independence, the five-year civil war that displaced more than a million people, the 1997 peace agreement under President Emomali Rahmon, elected three years earlier. The document names experts: Edward Lemon, president of the Oxus Society for Central Asian Affairs and assistant professor at the Bush School of Government and Public Service; Nigora Karimova, a Tajik gender expert writing under a pseudonym; and Svetlana Dzardanova, a Kyrgyzstan-based researcher at Freedom for Eurasia. The feature reports the September 2015 banning of the Islamic Renaissance Party and the forcible shaving of beards of approximately 13,000 men. Hijab restrictions began in 2007 when the Education Ministry banned Islamic clothing and Western-style miniskirts for schoolchildren.