The secular state of Tajikistan forced 13,000 men to shave their beards in 2015 as part of an effort to crush radical Islam.
Tajik authorities cracked down on 12,818 men for violating the law with “overly long and unkempt beards” and remedied the breach by forcibly shaving all of them, Radio Free Europe reports.
This latest police press conference is somewhat surprising, since authorities previously denied that they openly targeted men with long beards or women in hijabs. Police have had to work overtime to try and stop the creeping influence of Islam from overwhelming traditional Tajik values. Authorities count Islam as a “foreign” influence and maintain that they do not want radical values spilling over from Afghanistan.
Shaving beards is just one of the ways authorities have attempted to keep the state secular. Police also shut down 162 stores that were selling hijabs and further arrested 89 prostitutes who were wearing hijabs. Tajikistan has previously debated a full ban on Arabic names. That debate culminated in a successful vote. President Emomali Rahmon, who has served since 1992, is expected to approve the legislation along with other legislation banning cousin marriage, a common Islamic practice.
How much longer the government can keep Tajikistan secular is an open question, as the population at 98 percent is almost completely Muslim. The government is desperate to keep radical Muslims from obtaining political power. The Supreme Court last year banned the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan, citing violence stirred up by Islamists. That party was the only registered Islamic political party.
About 2,000 Tajiks have left the country to fight in Syria. Tajikistan’s police chief also defected to Islamic State in April of 2015 and later appeared in an ISIS recruitment video in which he threatened Rahmon.
“Listen, you dogs, the president and ministers, if only you knew how many boys, our brothers, are here, waiting and yearning to return to Tajikistan to re-establish sharia law there,” Colonel Gulmurod Khalimov said. “We are coming for you, inshallah.” Tajikistan did not comment on the video.
RT reported in October 2015 that Russia is considering sending border control units to Tajikistan to ensure radicalism doesn’t filter over the Afghanistan boundary.
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