For Tajiks, a Shrinking, Suspicious World

The March 22 terrorist attack on the Crocus City Hall concert venue on the outskirts of Moscow, which killed more than 140 people, was allegedly carried out by four Tajiks on behalf of the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP). Although Moscow continues to argue a convoluted Ukrainian connection, no one outside Russia takes that delusion seriously. Instead, it is Tajiks around the world who are in the spotlight, and Dushanbe isn’t in a rush to help any of them. In fact, it’s capitalizing on the present spike in global fears of terrorists with Tajik passports.

The Crocus City Hall attack set off a troubling paroxysm of discrimination and harassment targeting ethnic Tajiks in Russia, and to a lesser extent others of Central Asian origin. But it also fed into a series of arrests around the world of Tajiks. Some have been credibly accused of connections to the Islamic State but others are known current or former members of the Tajik opposition – their arrests indelibly muddled by Dushanbe’s long history of conflating opposition with extremism. An ignorant international community, terrified of terrorists, is all too happy to take Dushanbe’s word for truth.

Terrorists or Political Opposition? 

One of the first to comment on the alleged involvement of Tajiks in the Crocus City Hall attack was Muhiddin Kabiri, the exiled leader of the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT), which Dushanbe branded an extremist group in 2015 (Russia followed suit in 2022).

On March 23, a day after the attack, Kabiri expressed his condolences and pleaded with the world not to turn on Tajiks: “Don't let my people become victims of state terror at home and hatred abroad.”

In a video statement, Kabiri condemned the attack and apologized that it seemed that Tajik citizens, or dual Tajik-Russian citizens, were responsible. He also noted other recent incidents involving Tajik citizens or ethnic Tajiks, including a suicide attack in Iran in January that killed at least 96 people, and a gun attack on a Catholic Church in Istanbul that same month that killed one person.

Kabiri also mentioned Tajiks detained in Austria and Germany in December on suspicion of preparing to attack churches during the Christmas season.

“In all these cases Tajiks were involved, we say this with regret,” Kabiri said. “At the same time we declare that the Tajik people, the Tajik opposition, unanimously condemn and refute these actions.”

Kabiri went on to recount conversations he had in Russia when visiting the country as a member if the Tajik parliament, warning about the consequences of restricting religious practices. “You can’t put pressure on religion, you can’t illegally restrict religious activities… because it gives rise to radicalism.”

“All our warnings were ignored, not only in Tajikistan but also unfortunately in Russia.”

Kabiri arguably wanted to get out in front of the Tajik government, as Dushanbe has typically sought to link incidents of terror to the IRPT, even when groups like ISKP claim responsibility. That’s precisely what happened in 2018 when four foreign cyclists were killed in Tajikistan. Even though the five attackers appeared in a video pledging allegiance to the Islamic State before the attack, Dushanbe blamed both the IRPT and Iran.

After Crocus, Heightened Focus on Tajiks

In the wake of the Crocus City Hall attack, there were four sets of arrests worth contemplating and contrasting.

On April 1, Turkish media reported that a pair of Central Asians – a Tajik man and a Kyrgyz woman – were detained during a raid in Istanbul. Turkish authorities, in the aftermath of the Crocus City Hall attack, have engaged in a significant number of raids targeting suspected Islamic State members. A March 28 Le Monde report noted that during raids on the night of March 25 alone, 147 “suspected militants” were arrested in 30 cities across Turkey.

The two detained on April 1 reportedly had amassed a police uniform and accouterments and were allegedly planning an attack. Turkish media reported that the Kyrgyz woman had been deported while the Tajik man remains in custody. On April 6, Turkish authorities announced the scrapping, at least temporarily, of visa-free access for Tajik passport holders.

On April 5, Sulaimon Davlatov – who has lived and worked in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius for nine years – was arrested, with Lithuanian authorities saying that he “poses a threat to the national security of Lithuania due to interaction with members and supporters of terrorist organizations, extremist movements and propaganda of extremism.”

Davlatov is a former member of Group 24, a Tajik opposition group that was branded an extremist organization by Dushanbe in 2014. In 2015, he had been detained in Finland on an Interpol red notice, issued at the request of Tajik authorities. He was ultimately released and gained asylum in Lithuania. Tajikistan has been criticized for abusing the Interpol system to target opposition figures. For example, Kabiri marked a rare victory in 2018 when Interpol actually removed him from the red notice list.

Lithuanian authorities have said nothing more about the context of Davlatov’s recent arrest, though he was known for active criticism of the Tajik government online.

Then, on April 9, Ilhom Sairahmonzoda, a Tajik citizen, was arrested at Fiumicino airport in Rome upon returning to Italy from the Netherlands. He was reportedly detained at the request of the Tajik Interior Ministry, on charges of terrorism and membership in the Islamic State. Italian authorities said he had joined the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria back in 2014 and had used a variety of forged documents in the intervening years to escape arrest.

The same day, an Afghan publication shared a video of two young Tajik men being interrogated and allegedly confessing to being members of the Islamic State. In the video, they say they were recruited through Telegram while working in Russia and were detained by the Taliban authorities on their way to a training camp in Pakistan. The heavily edited video is undated, but the men are allegedly in detention in Afghanistan.

The Sin of Opportunism

Davlatov’s wife, Khurmatbibi Rakhmatshoeva, sent a letter to Lithuanian authorities urging them to not extradite her husband to Tajikistan, a sentiment echoed by Human Rights Watch.

“I wrote in a letter that if he is extradited to Tajikistan, he faces severe punishment, a long prison sentence, and possibly even death,” she told RFE/RL’s Tajik Service. “We became refugees in Lithuania, a country that respects democratic values, human rights, and freedoms. Since 2015, the Tajik authorities have been persecuting my husband for his participation in the Group 24 organization, so we became refugees in Lithuania.”

Of the four arrests detailed above, Davlatov’s certainly stands out as likely an instance of opportunism on the part of Dushanbe. He fits the profile: a vocal member of the diaspora opposition who slipped through the Tajik authorities’ grasp a decade ago.

Regardless, in every one of these cases individuals have the right to fair treatment, and a fair hearing of the evidence against them. They should not be condemned merely because of the color of their passport. The unfortunate reality is that Dushanbe doesn’t care and isn’t going to lobby for their rights, and everyone else is afraid. That’s a recipe for repression and, paradoxically, exactly the conditions of perceived (and real) injustice and discrimination that drive people to extremes.