CRS: TJ Overview

Congressional Research Service (CRS) In Focus brief IF10290, updated 28 March 2025, authored by Maria A. Blackwood, Analyst in Asian Policy, provides a country overview of Tajikistan for the U.S. Congress. The document reports that President Emomali Rahmon has held power since 1992, was exempted from term limits in a 2016 referendum, and that his son Rustam Emomali (Speaker of the upper chamber) is first in line of succession. The report states that March 2025 parliamentary elections gave the ruling People’s Democratic Party 49 of 63 lower-house seats and that OSCE cancelled observation, citing lack of cooperation. On human rights, the report states issues include extrajudicial killings, torture, arbitrary arrest, and restrictions on expression, assembly, religion and political participation, and cites an “unprecedented” crackdown since 2021 on Pamiri communities in Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast (GBAO). Tajikistan is ranked 155th of 180 in the 2024 Reporters Without Borders index. The document reports a 2024 law banning “clothing alien to Tajik culture”, a ban on minors in public religious activity, and that the State Department has designated Tajikistan a “Country of Particular Concern” under IRFA 1998. On terrorism, it states an estimated 1,900 Tajik citizens joined IS/other groups, and that over 380 women and minors had been repatriated from Syria and Iraq as of April 2024. Internal sources cited: U.S. State Department, Freedom House, HRW, World Bank, CIA World Factbook, OSCE, UN.