ILGA-Europe: Tajikistan annual review (2023)

The report states that rising living costs, including food, medication and transport, worsened conditions for LGBT people in Tajikistan during 2023, with flight-ticket costs making it harder for many to leave the country. It states that stigma and discrimination in society and family, combined with extortion and blackmail by law enforcement agencies, have pushed many community members to seek asylum in European countries, with more than five reported instances of asylum being granted. On bias-motivated violence, the report states that ECOM’s annual report documented 22 cases in 2022 while other organisations documented over 70 cases, and that in February 2023 police arrested ten men in Dushanbe over Ministry of Internal Affairs allegations that they had infected more than 80 people with HIV. It states that law-enforcement authorities use Article 125 of the Criminal Code (intentional transmission of HIV) to extort and search for further community members, with more than 20 LGBT people detained and tested for HIV against their will and some convicted and serving sentences. The report states that in 2023 many LGBT people were charged under Article 241 (pornography-related offences) after police took phones by force without court sanction. It states that LGBT bloggers abroad were intimidated online and their families harassed, that human rights defenders continued to report pressure and detention under false charges, and that at least two trans men and one trans woman changed their documents via court procedure despite the absence of a transparent legal gender recognition procedure.