The Tajik Rumble in Warsaw

It was a brief brawl. As Tajik government officials exited the Sofitel Hotel, Sulayman Orzuev, a Tajik activist, approached them and began talking and following them along the sidewalk. After a few seconds, one of the delegation members – reportedly Murod Saidzoda, an economic advisor to Tajikistan’s ambassador to Germany – moved toward Orzuev and punched him in the face. He then kicked another activist, Vaisiddin Odinaiv, whose brother Ehson disappeared from St. Petersburg in 2015, likely into Tajik custody.

The incident was caught on video by Shukrah Rakhmatullo, whose father Rahmatullo Rajab was given a 28-year sentence in 2016 as part of the Tajik government’s crusade against the leaders of the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT).

The scuffle added yet another dimension to Tajikistan’s already poor track record when it comes to how it handles criticism of its human rights record.

Each year in Warsaw, the Organization for Security and Co-Operation in Europe (OSCE) organizes what is billed as the “largest annual human rights conference” in Europe, the Human Dimension Implementation Meetings (HDIMs). The OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), which orchestrates the massive affair, invites government officials, international experts, civil society representatives, and human rights activists to assess the state of human rights in OSCE countries.

Tajikistan’s exiled opposition – many of whom have been granted asylum in Europe – over the past few years have made a strong showing at the annual HDIM. Tajikistan’s government and its representatives, on the other hand, have increasingly come across as defiant, petty, and uninterested in the whole charade of assessing and improving the country’s human rights record.

The problems began in earnest at the 2016 HDIM.

On the first day of the OSCE conference on September 19, 2016 during a session discussing Tajikistan, about 20 Tajiks staged a quiet protest. Wearing shirts with pictures of imprisoned politicians and lawyers, the Europe-dwelling Tajiks stood silently in the back of the room.

The next day, there were reports that about 50 relatives of the protesters had been arrested in Tajikistan. The OSCE’s ODIHR posted a statement from the IRPT, a registered participant at the HDMI, but did not make a statement itself. The IRPT statement came with a standard disclaimer: “ODIHR bears no responsibility for the content of such documents received for distribution, and circulates them without altering their content. The distribution... of documents received does not imply any endorsement by ODIHR and is without prejudice to OSCE decisions, as set out in documents agreed by OSCE participating States.”

On September 22, 2016 the Tajik government delegation walked out of the meetings, protesting the IRPT’s presence. Back in Tajikistan, in addition to the arrests mentioned above, mobs accosted relatives of the activists. One of the more dramatic stories included a crowd of students, teachers, school and city officials, and local media descending on the classroom of 9-year-old Fatima, the daughter of exiled political activist Shabnam Khudoydodova.

According to Human Rights Watch, “The crowd taunted her, calling her the daughter of a ‘terrorist’ and ‘enemy of the people,’ and followed her home, where she lives with her grandmother and other relatives.”

In the summer of 2017, the OSCE downgraded its presence in Tajikistan, transitioning its  “OSCE Office in Tajikistan” into the “OSCE Program Office in Dushanbe.” The OSCE closed its fields offices in Garm, Khujand, Kulyab, Shaartuz and Qurghonteppa. The new arrangement was likely the result of pressure from the Tajik government and compromise by the OSCE in order to remain in the country.

The decision was officially made by the OSCE Permanent Council in Vienna, but the Russian delegation’s “interpretative statement” shed some light on the situation:

We underscore the sovereign right of States hosting OSCE field missions to determine independently the scope of the work of such presences and the forms of interaction with them. Any imposing of project and other activities or forms of cooperation constitutes interference in the internal affairs of the State.

As the host State, the Republic of Tajikistan has the right to the deciding vote in agreeing on areas of practical assistance from the OSCE Programme Office, which should be aimed at building the country’s national capacity.

In short: If Tajikistan doesn’t want to work on human rights, the OSCE can’t make it.

As the 2017 HDIM approached that September, the Tajik government pressured activists not to show their faces by arresting their relatives in Tajikistan.

Ultimately, the Tajik government skipped the meeting entirely. Meanwhile, Tajik media floated the rumor that Dushanbe would consider kicking the OSCE out entirely if the IRPT was allowed to attend the meetings in Warsaw.

The IRPT and other opposition activists did attend, but the OSCE wasn’t ousted.

And this brings us to 2018. Ahead of the HDIM, this summer Tajikistan was pressured to allow two children – the relatives of exiled opposition members – to leave the country after massive social media campaigns. Shabnam Khudoydodova’s daughter Fatima was one of the children and the other was IRPT leader Muhiddin Kabiri’s grandson, Hamza, a 4-year-old with a rare form of cancer. In a similar fashion, Tajikistan released jailed journalist Khayrullo Mirsaidov after the #FreeKhayrullo campaign reached a fever pitch.

As the HDIM kicked off, there was remarkable news on a few fronts, and then the fight mentioned above shattered the sense of progress.

First, four exiled Tajik opposition groups – Forum for Free-Thinkers of Tajikistan, the Reform and Development Movement, the Central Asian Migrants Movement, and the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan -- announced that they were forming a unified front: the National Alliance of Tajikistan (NAT). While exiled political coalitions have historically had little success in motivating change back home, the formation of an alliance of this nature nonetheless underscores a coalescing of opposition to the present Tajik government.

Second, in a truly remarkable exchange that ended in laughs and a handshake, the IRPT’s Kabiri was told by Saifullo Safarov, the deputy head of a think tank affiliated with the Tajik presidential administration, that 186 political prisoners – including well-known names like Zaid Saidov and Mahmadali Hayit – would be released soon.

The next day, Murod Saidzoda punched an opposition activist in the face.

What to make of this series of events?

At the highest levels, the Tajik authorities continue to view opposition at the very least as an annoyance and at the extreme an existential threat. The Tajik government has tried out a wide variety of responses to its opposition, from persecution to prosecution. What Dushanbe hasn’t tried is engagement.

The dangling of a possible release of political prisoners isn’t really engagement either. Instead, it smacks of inducement: an effort by the regime to get its critics to shut their mouths because their friends are free. But as the cases this summer illustrated, there’s always another hostage. Given Tajikistan’s authoritarian government and the possibility that President Emomali Rahmon will seek to pass the torch to his son, there will always be another case for activists to shout about.

At the same time, as the scuffle demonstrated, tempers are high among Tajiks loyal to the Rahmon regime. The government has expended considerable effort in demonizing the opposition, and has engaged in plenty of brute thuggery itself: from harassing children to kidnapping opposition members from abroad and worse. With that in mind, fisticuffs are no surprise.

A week after Saidzoda’s took a swing at an exile Tajik activist, his boss -- the Tajik Ambassador to Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic, Maliksho Nematov -- was released from his post. Unlikely a coincidence, the move nevertheless doesn’t make the situation any more clear.