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| Muslims pray at the mosque in Dushanbe. |
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
