Human Rights in Tajikistan: Don’t Even Mention It

As the world winces at allegations Tajik authorities tortured a BBC journalist, a new cache of Wikileaked US diplomatic cables provides insight into the challenge of even discussing human rights in Tajikistan.

Several of the dispatches date back to an episode in late 2005, when US diplomats tried to organize a roundtable with university students to mark the UN’s Human Rights Day. Why students? Because this is a touchy topic their “government brethren smile at politely and ignore,” then-Ambassador Richard Hoagland writes in a cable, “The Grinch Who Stole Human Rights Day.” 

When it comes time to hold the event, behind the scenes officials do everything they can to thwart it. At one university venue, and then the next, Tajik and Russian diplomats used “fabricated excuses that canceled the planned discussions.”

Once Tajikistan’s image is at stake, however, the official tone changes, a cable entitled “The Grinch Changes His Mind” explains. Astutely appealing to authorities’ vanity, an American diplomat dropped word at the MFA that the US embassy was drafting its annual human rights report and “this current development would not reflect at all well in Tajikistan's evaluation.” The Americans were allowed to proceed with their “lecture” – as one Tajik official described it. 

“In Tajikistan, we are increasingly convinced that the grade-school lesson of how to react to playground bullies is pertinent: give them an inch and they'll continue to take ten miles,” Hoagland writes. 

The reports, including a brief on the discussion, generally praises the students’ openness and eagerness to discuss human rights, even though the “Tajik government still considers the very words ‘human rights’ taboo.”