Tag: Islam

Conflict in Tajikistan – not really about radical Islam | openDemocracy

For almost a month, an armed conflict has been raging in the mountains of the Kamarob gorge between the forces of the Government of Tajikistan and local ‘mujohids’. This is the most serious political violence in Tajikistan for ten years. Here, in the first of a two-part article, Sophie Roche and John Heathershaw draw on ethnographic research and contacts with residents of the region to explain the legacy of the civil war and the social and political contexts of this largely unreported conflict.

via Conflict in Tajikistan – not really about radical Islam | openDemocracy.

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.

Islam Reborn – Tajikstan Documentary Film

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fzoFekT490

June 1996

Islam Reborn follows the return of Islamic refugees from Afghanistan to Tajikistan who were pushed out during the civil war.

The ruling Kulabis are reliant on Russian funding, and the resurrection of an Islamic mosque suggests the Islamists are yet again establishing a strong hold.

A report on the defeat and recovery of Islam in Tajikistan. A bus rumbles through the shimmering heat to a Russian check point. Behind it, 1300 miles of barbed wire mark Tajikistan’s border with Afghanistan. The bus contains anxious Garmis returning home from Afghan refugee camps. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, they were driven out by a vicious civil war between their own Islamic forces and the Soviet backed Kulabis. They now return, fearing reprisals from a new Kulabi government, but hoping after 4 years to resume normal life. In the south where the worst fighting took Place, villages are full of bombed out buildings and weary widows crouching in the dust. Starving hungry, they wait patiently for flour from the World Food Programme to be weighed out on antique scales and distributed. In the capital, Dushanbe, the Prime Minister claims stiffly that the economy is not collapsing and that “in the very near future we will be able to pay salaries”. With Russia‘s financial support, Kulabis cling onto power, stationing their khaki tanks on every tree lined avenue. But the careful restoration of an blue mosaic mosque represents an Islamic renaissance. If Russia pulls out, Garmis in exile may storm the capital and transform Tajikistan into an Islamic state. Report on the aftermath of civil war and the suppression of ethnic/political differences. Includes archive footage of the civil war.

Produced by ABC Australia
Distributed by Journeyman Pictures