Pamir Inside: "Who are the Pamiris? Ethnic group or nationality? Expert analysis"

The article, published on 11 May 2023 by Pamir Inside at the request of Pamir Daily News, presents an analysis by Pamiri-diaspora specialists of the ethnic and national status of Pamiris (памирцы) in Tajikistan. The article frames its publication as a response to what it describes as an online campaign, conducted after a UN conference in Geneva, denying the separate existence of Pamiris, their languages and the term “GBAO” (ГБАО — Горно-Бадахшанская автономная область / Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region).

The article states that Pamiris form a distinct ethnic group within the Tajik/Tajikistani civic nation, with their own languages, culture and religious identity (Ismaili), and that residents of GBAO self-identify as “помири” (pomiri) / Pamiris. It reports that this status is underpinned in national law by Chapter 7 of the Constitution of Tajikistan, by the Constitutional Law on GBAO, and by Article 4 of the Law on the State Language, which recognises Pamiri and Yaghnobi as languages rather than dialects.

The article cites international instruments ratified by Tajikistan, naming Article 27 ICCPR (МПГПП) and Article 30 CRC (КПР), and historical materials including the 1926 All-Union census (which registered Pamiris as a distinct nationality), the 1939 census, the reported 1972 destruction of Shughni-language books at the Firdavsi State Public Library in Dushanbe, and S.V. Cheshko’s (С.В. Чешко) 1988–1989 article “Время стирать ‘белые пятна’” in Soviet Ethnography. The article reports that since the 1950s the USSR pursued assimilation of Pamiri peoples, that Pamiris in the Russian Federation have recorded their identity in censuses since 2010, and that in Tajikistan self-identification as Pamiri during a census may attract harassment, up to criminal liability. The article states Pamiris constitute about three per cent of Tajikistan’s population.