The Men Evading Tajikistan's de-facto Beard Ban

'I did not grow a beard to be vulgar but because it's beautiful',
says Romish Ibrohimov.

THE GUARDIAN: Reports indicate the government is clamping down on facial hair on religious grounds, but the rules don’t seem to apply to all. Global Voices Online reports

Russia’s great moderniser Peter the Great was responsible for one of history’s strangest tariffs: the beard tax.

Now, more than 300 years later Tajikistan’s president Emomali Rahmon is clamping down on facial hair with the same fervour, seemingly linked to the government’s ongoing campaign against the influence of Islam in Tajik society.

Reports that police in the former Soviet state have been forcibly shaving men with facial hair are widespread.

In April, Rustam Gulov claims the police took him into custody and shaved him against his will. “Judging by the hair in the room, I estimate they shaved the beards of approximately 200-250 people before me,” the well-known blogger later wrote. » | Global Voices Online, part of the New East network | Monday, September 7, 2015

Tajikistan Debates Ban on Arabic Names as Part Of Crackdown on Islam

Muslims pray at the mosque in Dushanbe.

THE GUARDIAN: Authorities prepare list of acceptable alternatives for parents amid warning that ‘unsuitable’ names will not be registered. Eurasianet.org reports

Tajikistan is debating legislation to ban Arabic names as part of an ongoing campaign against Islam that has seen men being forced to shave their beards and women in hijab being labelled prostitutes.

The president, Emomali Rahmon, ordered his rubber-stamp parliament to consider a bill that would forbid the registration of names considered too Arabic, an official in the Justice Ministry’s department of civil registry told Interfax.

“After the adoption of these regulations, the registry offices will not register names that are incorrect or alien to the local culture, including names denoting objects, flora and fauna, as well as names of Arabic origin,” Jaloliddin Rahimov was quoted as saying. » | David Trilling for Eurasianet.org, part of the New East network | Friday, May 08, 2015

Clinton Warns Tajikistan on Stoking Radical Islam

ARAB NEWS: DUSHANBE: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned Tajikistan on Saturday that efforts to crack down on religious freedom might backfire and increase sympathy for radical views that could threaten stability in the Central Asian country.

Clinton, who met Tajik President Imomali Rakhmon on a trip to thank two Central Asian states for their cooperation in the US-led war in neighboring Afghanistan, said freedom of religious expression was tied to the region’s future security.

“I disagree with restrictions on religious freedom and shared those concerns,” Clinton told a news conference after meeting Rakhmon.

She said efforts to regulate religion “could push legitimate religious expression underground, and that could build up a lot of unrest and discontent.” » | ANDREW QUINN | REUTERS | Saturday, October 22, 2011

Hatred Against Islam Now Political Feast: OIC
SAUDI GAZETTE: DUSHANBE – Islamophobia will dominate the agenda of the 37th session of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) Council of Foreign Ministers (CFM) meeting here, marking the first time the Tajik capital has played host to the annual gathering.

The President of the Republic of Tajikistan, Emomali Rahmon, addressed the opening of the three-day conference Tuesday.

“We are happy to notice the recent positive changes and developments in the OIC’s activities as it has increased its international role,” said Rahmon.

OIC Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu highlighted the significance of holding the OIC session in Dushanbe. “The chronicles of Islamic history bear eloquent testimony to the abounding wealth of cultural and edifying legacy, conferred to Islamic civilization, by the illustrious sons of this region,” he said.

Stressing the need to effectively tackle Islamophobia, Ihsanoglu said the hate wave against Islam and Muslim immigrants has become a “political commodity” and a “winning chip” in the hands of political parties during their election campaigns in the West.

Achieving any real progress in this area requires direct and dedicated interaction between OIC member states and the West.

“A high level ministerial meeting must be convened to evolve an Islamic plan for interaction with the West, regarding Islamophobia, and defending our just causes and in facing up to the mounting hate wave against Islam.

I also suggest that the question of Islamophobia be included in all member states’ interactions with their Western counterparts,” he said. >>> Jassim Alghamdi, SG | Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Heroin Addiction Spreads Like Wildfire in Russia
LOS ANGELES TIMES: As the drug has poured into the country from Afghanistan in recent years, Russians' relative ignorance about its dangers has taken a huge toll, especially on the young.

Reporting from Podolsk, Russia - The young man named Anton is a member of Russia's "lost generation."

He's the son of middle-class, college-educated engineers; he studied at a good university and became a truck sales manager in Moscow. He's also a 28-year-old heroin addict.

In the years since the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan triggered a sharp increase in poppy cultivation, Russia has been flooded with heroin. The drug has crept along a trail stretching from Afghanistan through Tajikistan and other Central Asian nations and over the Russian border, turning this country into the world's top consumer of heroin, the government says.

The drug has spread like fire through a country uniquely unqualified to cope with its dangers: Narcotics were largely absent during Soviet times, and most people are still unaware of the risk of heroin addiction, even as an estimated 83 Russians a day die by overdosing on the drug, government figures show.

"It's a catastrophe for us. We were completely unprepared for this turn of events," says Evgeny Bryun, Moscow's chief drug addiction specialist. "We have our own lost generation."

The transition from a Soviet state largely free from heroin to a booming nation awash in the drug has been painful and dark, marked by widespread public ignorance of the risks and symptoms of addiction, lingering shame and stigma, and muddled government efforts at treatment.

Methadone, which is widely used in the West to wean people off heroin, is illegal in Russia, and rehabilitation programs are unavailable in many parts of the country. In 2007, Human Rights Watch concluded that the treatment at state drug clinics was "so poor as to constitute a violation of the right to health."

Meanwhile, at private clinics, all manner of experimental treatments -- including shock therapy and the removal of parts of the brain -- are in vogue. In Bryun's government-run clinic, addicts take turns sleeping hooked up to machines that send gentle electrical impulses through their brains, or lying encased in a full-body relaxation therapy machine.

Heroin has also emerged as a thorn in U.S.-Russian relations, as officials in Moscow have grown increasingly angry over what they describe as American indifference to the booming heroin trade.

On the margins of the grinding war in Afghanistan, U.S. efforts to eradicate poppy fields -- and to come up with persuasive incentives to wean farmers from the crop -- have remained largely ineffective for years.

In a nod of cooperation to the Obama administration, Russia recently agreed to allow cargo planes carrying U.S. troops and weapons to pass through the country en route to Afghanistan. But at the same time, it's lobbying noisily for tougher crackdowns on the cultivation of opium poppies, which are used in the production of heroin. Early this month, President Dmitry Medvedev called rampant heroin addiction "a threat to the country's national security."

Russia has called on the United Nations to link the foreign troop presence in Afghanistan to an obligation to destroy poppy plantations. >>> Megan K. Stack | Friday, September 25, 2009

LOS ANGELES TIMES PHOTOGALLERY:
Treating heroin addiction in Russia >>>

Watch AP video: Russian students may face drugs tests too >>>