Tajik Report Stirs Debate

An IWPR report on authorities targeting an Islamic missionary group they regard as subversive was highlighted for offering insights that questioned whether a hard-line approach is always the right one.

The article, Tajik Clampdown on Islamic Group Could Backfire, contained interviews with analysts in Tajikistan who raised concerns that a campaign of detentions and prosecutions of followers of the missionary group Tablighi Jamaat could end up further radicalising members and driving them underground.

The authorities appear to be applying the same tough policies to Tablighi Jamaat as they have to outlawed organisations like the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and Hizb ut-Tahrir.

In the article, an interior ministry official who asked not to be identified told IWPR that Tablighi Jamaat represented a real danger, although he did not offer evidence that members were involved in subversive activity within Tajikistan apart from distributing Islamist pamphlets.

"They've studied illegally in Pakistan, and since they were there illegally, it's more than likely they received training in terrorist camps,"

"Articles like this are a rarity in Tajikistan."
former officer in Tajikistan's security service

Radical Islam is an emotive topic in Tajikistan. Responses to the article indicated that its author, Nargiz Hamrabaeva, managed to achieve a balance between official suspicions about Tablighi Jamaat and the views of commentators who question the wisdom of blanket bans.

Rashid Ghani Abdullo, a leading political analyst in Tajikistan, noted that the IWPR report gave a voice to opposing groups in this confrontation - the authorities and Islamic group members - which would not otherwise talk to one another.

"It's good that the article contains a kind of dialogue between the different sides, albeit an indirect one," he said.

A former officer in Tajikistan's security service who asked to remain anonymous warned that "applying repressive methods to even the most tolerant of Islamic organisations may end up radicalising them".

Part of the problem in dealing with Islamic groups, especially those with roots outside Tajikistan, is that the security services are short of experts on the subject. As a result, said the former officer, "no one can say for sure how big the threat is. Yet this article has several experts…. giving a very competent view of this movement".

"Articles like this are a rarity in Tajikistan," he concluded.