HRW urged Tajikistan’s partners to remember the events in Badakhshan

Although two years have passed since Tajik law enforcement brutally suppressed protesters in the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region of Tajikistan, resulting in the deaths of more than 40 people, no one has been held accountable.

The international human rights organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) emphasized in its report dated May 15 that Tajikistan’s international partners should remember the events of May 2022 in Khorog and demanded that Tajik authorities hold those responsible accountable.

The report notes that on May 16, 2022, peaceful protests began in Khorog, the administrative center of the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region (GBAO), where residents demanded an end to oppression and alleged persecution of local residents by Tajik law enforcement.

However, law enforcement dispersed the protesters using tear gas, rubber bullets, applied excessive force, and even committed killings, arbitrarily detained and tortured more than two hundred protesters and local residents. Most of the detainees were sentenced to long prison terms, and court hearings were held behind closed doors.

Synat Sultanalieva, a Central Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch, notes that no one has been held accountable for the suppression of protesters in GBAO, which the authorities called an “anti-terrorist operation.”

“At least six civil society activists who advocated for the rights of the Pamiris, an ethnic minority living in GBAO, have been convicted and are still in prison. This includes 67-year-old Ulfatkhonim Mamadshoeva, an independent journalist and civil society activist who was sentenced to 21 years in prison, and human rights defender Manuchehr Kholiknazorov, the director of the Pamir Lawyers Association, who was sentenced to 16 years in prison,” the statement notes.

Synat Sultanalieva emphasized that hundreds of non-governmental organizations in the region and the country have been forcibly closed, and Pamiris have been prohibited from speaking publicly in their language and holding prayer meetings in their homes.

The authors of the report note that the international response to the crisis events in GBAO has been relatively restrained.

“In July 2022, the European Parliament, and in December 2022, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders Mary Lawlor called on the Tajik authorities to investigate the events in GBAO. But more is needed,” the report states.

Despite reports of increasing Tajikistan’s involvement in transnational repression, there are signs of growing security cooperation between some EU members and Turkey with Tajikistan, Sultanalieva emphasized.