Category: Religion

Tajikistan Highlights Persian Roots with Novruz Celebration | EurasiaNet.org

Nothing highlights the Tajik government’s efforts to forge a distinct national identity better than the country’s annual Novruz festivities. This year, officials emphasized Tajikistan’s Persian roots during the week-long celebration. Carefully stage-managed public events steered clear of religion and politics.

Banned for much of the Soviet period, the festival of Novruz – also, Nowruz, Nawruz and a few other alternatives – derives its name from the Persian for “New Day” and marks the arrival of spring. The holiday, centering on the vernal equinox, is celebrated in much of greater Central Asia, as well as parts of the Caucasus and by Turkey’s Kurdish minority, and is believed to have originated as the Zoroastrian New Year in ancient Persia. In 2009, it was added to UNESCO’s List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

In Tajikistan, the holiday has become part of the country’s quest for a new, post-Soviet national identity. As in many former Soviet republics, that quest has involved turning to the distant, sometimes mythologized past. For Tajikistan, where the primary language is closely related to modern Farsi and the Dari spoken in Afghanistan, tapping into the lore of ancient Persia is a logical way to distinguish Tajiks from the Slavs and Turkic peoples of formerly Soviet Central Asia.

“Blessed Novruz is the greatest and most beautiful festival for the Aryan people,” read banners quoting President Imomali Rahmon, displayed around the capital, Dushanbe. The ancient Aryans are believed to be forebears of today’s Persian-speaking peoples: “Iran” is a Persian word for “land of the Aryans,” and the ancient Greeks called the greater region including Afghanistan and present-day Tajikistan “Ariana.”

via Tajikistan Highlights Persian Roots with Novruz Celebration | EurasiaNet.org.

Tajikistan Joins “World’s Worst Religious Freedom Violators”—US Report | EurasiaNet.org

Tajikistan has been added to a US government list of the world’s 16 worst abusers of religious freedom.

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), funded by Congress, has censured Tajikistan for “systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of freedom of religion or belief,” naming the country one of it’s “countries of particular concern.” In a report released March 20, USCIRF says Dushanbe “suppresses and punishes all religious activity independent of state control, and imprisons individuals on unproven criminal allegations linked to religious activity or affiliation.”

Elsewhere in Central Asia, USCIRF has long classified Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan as “countries of particular concern” (CPC). The commission says it is closely monitoring Kazakhstan. Turkey also joined the CPC list this year.

The annual report offers recommendations to Congress, the secretary of state, and the president. The State Department issues its own yearly report on religious freedom, which takes into consideration the commission’s recommendations, but usually includes a shorter list of countries of particular concern and recommendations for sanctions. In the case of gas-rich Turkmenistan, though it has been on the commission’s CPC list since 2000, the State Department does not include it on its own list. The State Department has designated Uzbekistan, an essential ally in the Afghanistan war, as a CPC since 2006, but since 2009 has waved any punitive action.

This year, the commission graduated Tajikistan from its “watch list” partially because Dushanbe introduced harsh new legislation broadly affecting the country’s faithful, especially the Muslim majority. One new law “even limits parents’ choice of their children’s names.”

via Tajikistan Joins “World’s Worst Religious Freedom Violators”—US Report | EurasiaNet.org.

Fars News Agency :: UN Celebrates Int’l Day of Nowrouz

TEHRAN (FNA)- The United Nations Organization held a ceremony at its Headquarters in New York to mark the International Day of Nowrouz.

The ceremony was attended by representatives from 11 Persian-language speaking countries, ambassadors along with diplomats from other member states.

Representatives from Iran, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Tajikistan in speeches delivered to the ceremony highlighted the longstanding event of Nowrouz.

Nowrouz, which coincides with the first day of spring on the solar calendar, is mostly celebrated in Iran, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, India, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Pakistan, Turkey and Uzbekistan.

The International Day of Nowrouz was registered on the UNESCO List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity on February 23, 2010.

For Iranians, Nowrouz is a celebration of renewal and change, a time to visit relatives and friends, and pay respect to senior family members.

Iranians welcome the New Year by wearing new clothes and setting the Haft Seen, a table containing seven items starting with the letter ‘S’; Sabzeh (freshly grown greens), Samanu (sweet wheat paste), Senjed (jujube), Seeb (apple), Seer (garlic), Serkeh (vinegar) and Somaq (sumac).

via Fars News Agency :: UN Celebrates Int’l Day of Nowrouz.

Tajikistan hosts international Nowruz celebrations | euronews, world news

Snow might not be ideal weather for a festival that marks the coming of Spring. But the annual feast of Nowruz is a big deal in Tajikistan.

Hence preparations, amid the white stuff, for a party complete with international guests. Nowruz is celebrated in countries from Asia to the Middle East.

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai are among those attending.

And judging by those who talked to our correspondent in the Tajik capital Dushanbe, there is no shortage of holiday spirit.

“I wish a happy Nowruz, health and prosperity to all Iranians and Persian speakers,” said one young woman.

“On behalf of all Tajik people, I wish happiness, health and joy to all who celebrate Nowruz,” a man added.

“I am Tajik from Dushanbe. I wish you a lifetime of happiness,“a woman told our reporter.

via Tajikistan hosts international Nowruz celebrations | euronews, world news.

Interfax-Religion

Dushanbe, February 24, Interfax – A Tajik court has convicted seven people supporting the extremist ideas of the Tablighi Jamaat Islamic movement of openly calling for a violent subversion of the country’s legitimate authorities, the Tajik Supreme Court said in a press release.

The trial was held in the Sogda region, 100 kilometers north of the Dushanbe capital.

“The court found the defendants, seven citizens of Tajikistan, guilty of publicly calling for a violent subversion of the Tajikistan Republic’s constitutional system – Article 307.1 – and gave them prison sentences,” the court said.

Two of them were sentenced to five years in prison each, and the remaining five received three-year prison terms each.

It was the first trial over Tablighi Jamaat followers in Tajikistan in the past two years, following the conviction of 56 supporters of this movement in March 2010. Twenty-three Tajik citizens were given sentences ranging from three to six years in prison, and 33 other people were ordered to pay fines from $8,000 to $16,000.

Tablighi Jamaat, which does not have official registration, is widely popular in South Asian countries, including Pakistan, Bangladesh and India. However, the authorities of these countries regard this religious movement as dangerous.

via Interfax-Religion.

neweurasia.net » Masterpieces. Banned. Hidden.; Art documentary comes to Tajikistan

neweurasia.net » Masterpieces. Banned. Hidden.; Art documentary comes to Tajikistan.

In their invitation to the Tajik screening event, Silk Road Media explaines the documentary to be:

“…about a museum in the parched hinterland of Central Asia that contained the world’s largest collection of Russian avant-garde art during the time of the Soviet Union.”

Silk Road Media continues:

“The idea of the film is to show the story of how a person’s life turned out to be the preservation of a whole epoch of art, which would otherwise have been lost for evermore because of Soviet repression.”

Karakalpak Museum of Arts: Home of the Savitsky Collection explains the “Forbidden” nature of the museum’s art:

“…the Museum’s collection of Russian avant garde is the only one that was initially condemned officially by the Soviet Union and, at the same time, financed partly by it, albeit unwittingly. Evidently, Nukus’ status as a ‘closed’ city and, especially, Savitsky’s good relations with the Karakalpak regional authorities enabled this to happen.”

This December 2011 Tajik screening of “The Desert of Forbidden Art” is not the first time for the documentary to be seen in the region. On November 18th, 2011 the film came to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan’s University of Central Asia (138 Toktogul Street). The university shares a synopsis of the film:

“The incredible story of how a treasure trove of banned Soviet art worth millions of dollars is stashed in a far-off desert in Uzbekistan that develops into a larger exploration of how art survives in times of oppression…”

In August 2010, EurasiaNet.org reported on the documentary hitting the silver screen – making mention of how Savitsky challenged authority and refused to let censored art lay in shadows, hidden from the world:

“Thanks to Nukus’ remoteness from Moscow politics and local officials’ ignorance of art, Savitsky collected some 40,000 paintings by Soviet artists banned for ideological reasons, artists who refused to paint propaganda in a social realist style.”

On the Rise in Tajikistan, Islam Worries an Authoritarian Government

After decades of enforced secularism, the people of this impoverished former Soviet republic have been flocking to their traditional religion with all the zeal of born-again movements anywhere in the world.

The authoritarian government here could not be more worried. Spooked by the specter of Islamic radicalism and the challenges posed by increasingly influential religious leaders, the Tajik authorities have been working fervently to curb religious expression.

Bearded men have been detained at random, and women barred from religious services. This year, the government demanded that students studying religion at universities in places like Egypt, Syria and Iran return home. The police have shuttered private mosques and Islamic Web sites, and government censors now monitor Friday sermons, stepping in when muftis stray from the government line.

Last month, lawmakers took what many here said was a drastic step further: they passed a law that would, among other things, bar children younger than 18 from attending religious services at mosques.