EurasiaNet Eurasia Insight - Islamic Party Reduces Tension in Tajikistan by Moderating Stance on Upcoming Referendum

EURASIA INSIGHT

ISLAMIC PARTY REDUCES TENSION IN TAJIKISTAN BY MODERATING STANCE ON UPCOMING REFERENDUM
Kambiz Arman 6/12/03

The Islamic Renaissance Party has modified its stance on the country’s upcoming constitutional referendum, easing tension between the country’s leading opposition party and government. The referendum, scheduled for June 22, will ask voters to approve an array of constitutional amendments, including a controversial provision that would allow President Imomali Rahmonov to run for re-election.

The IRP initially opposed changing the constitution’s Article 65, under which President Rahomov would be barred from running for re-election. IRP leaders warned that the referendum could destabilize Tajik society. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. However, on June 10, IRP chief Said Abdullo Nuri announced that the IRP had decided against joining other opposition parties in issuing a statement "against the holding of the referendum." Nuri said the IRP leadership’s decision was based on concern over the potential for instability. "Ill-considered actions could lead to a new confrontation," Nuri said.

At the same time the IRP leader reiterated his opposition to the referendum. "The holding of the referendum is not a priority," the Asia-Plus news agency quoted Nuri as saying. "The immediate task of the Tajik leadership ought to be poverty reduction."

In the days preceding Nuri’s comments, it appeared that IRP-government tension was on the rise, driven in part by the arrest of IRP deputy chairman Shamsiddin Shamsiddinov. Military prosecutors charged Shamsiddinov with organizing an armed group supposedly responsible for a variety of crimes, including murders. Nuri described the charges against Shamsiddinov as "unfounded."

Nuri’s announcement on the IRP’s referendum stance followed a meeting with US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Lynn Pascoe, who was in Dushanbe on diplomatic business. The previous day, Pascoe discussed the referendum with Rahmonov. In comments broadcast by Tajik state television, Pascoe stressed that the referendum should be held "in accordance with international standards."

Rahmonov has maintained that the constitution needs amending to better reflect post-civil war circumstances. "I have been and I am still against being an all-powerful leader. The constitution is not just for Rahmonov," he said in April, according to the Tajikistan Times, a Moscow-based web site.

A recent report that citizens inside Tajikistan are unable to access the Tajikistan Times on the internet indicates civil society development in Tajikistan remains uneven. Reporters Without Borders, a Paris-based advocacy group, appealed on May 29 to stop authorities from blocking access to the Tajikistan Times, which is operated in Moscow by an opposition-aligned journalist, Dodojon Atovulloyev. In a letter to Rahmonov, Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Robert Menard effectively accused authorities of persecuting the reporter, who has a history of criticizing the government.

"In view of the prior harassment of Atovulloyev for several years because of his publications, and the obstacles to the emergence of independent news media," Bernard wrote, "we have every reason to believe that tajikistantimes.ru is being deliberately�censored, in order to deny Tajik Internet users free access to critical reporting." He noted that Tajikistan connections had failed to reach the site since April 24, a few days after Atovulloyev reported on former opposition commanders’ plans to oppose the referendum.

The facts at issue involve contradictory claims. Atovulloyev, via the Reporters Without Borders press release, said that authorities had blocked his site because it criticized the president and government and suggested that Rahmonov was engineering the referendum solely to gain a second term. However, Sohrab Sharifov, an adviser to Rahmonov, says that tajikistantimes.ru does not represent any sort of threat against the government and he does not see any reason why the government would try to block the site.

As in other Central Asian nations, independent media outlets in Tajikistan have often had to contend with government harassment. In 2002, four years after independent media company Asia-Plus had applied for a license to air radio programming in Dushanbe, the State TV and Radio Commission denied the application. The Committee to Protect Journalists publicly condemned the denial, prompting Rahmonov to ultimately grant Asia-Plus a broadcasting license. (EurasiaNet and Asia-Plus have had a content sharing relationship in the past).

Some local media experts say government pressure forces independent news organizations to engage in self-censorship to avoid retaliation. They cite an October 2002 incident in which a Khojand-based TV station called SMI broadcast a report about army press gangs forcibly conscripting youngsters in the northern city. According to the Reporters Without Borders 2003 Annual Report, Mahmujan Dadabayev, the head of the station, received phone calls from army officials threatening to kill him and close down the station. Afterwards, three SMI journalists, along with six others, were detained by military police and sent to an army base to work in its communications department. [For background, see the Eurasia Insight archive].

Editor�s Note: Kambiz Arman is the pseudonym for an independent journalist who covers Tajikistan.

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