This is a list of journalists who have been killed in Tajikistan or journalists from Tajikistan killed outside of the country since 1990. Listees include those known to have been murdered, as well as cases of suspicious deaths.
From 1990-2001 Tajikistan was one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists. Estimates for the number of journalists killed number from fifty to eighty. [1] In the late 1980s and early 1990s, journalism in Tajikistan underwent a transformation as the Soviet Union liberalized under glasnost and perestroika. Journalists in both private and state-run media were permitted greater editorial and investigative freedoms to report on issues and to challenge government propaganda. But journalists ran into danger when they publicly confronted powerful interests or reported on violent events. The first journalistic death in Tajikistan occurred on 12 February 1990 when a sniper in a government building opened fire on demonstrators in Dushanbe, killing a number of individuals, including a Lenfilm employee filming the events from his hotel. Following the events of February 1990, the government placed pressure on editors to fire dozens of journalists working for local television stations, radio stations and newspapers. [2]
Journalists continued to face official harassment through the fall of the Soviet Union and the independence of Tajikistan in 1991. [3] In mid-1992 the Civil War in Tajikistan began, and journalists became targets for killings. During the war, forces of the opposition and the government both massacred civilians from certain regions because of their perceived political alignments. Thousands of Gharmis and Pamiris were selectively killed by pro-government forces for killings in the first year of the war. [1] In December 1992 alone, four journalists of Pamiri origin were killed. [4] There were also instances of journalists who were killed for their criticism of Islamic groups allied with the opposition. By 1995 at least 37 journalists had been killed in Tajikistan. [5]
By the late 1990s, the number of killings of journalists in Tajikistan began to fall. This was not due to greater press freedoms in the republic, but rather to the fact that a large number of journalists had fled the country and journalistic freedom of expression inside of Tajikistan had come to a halt. The non-governmental organization Freedom House rated press freedoms in Tajikistan as "Not Free" beginning in 1992. [6] Other NGOs, including Human Rights Watch, the Committee to Protect Journalists and the Glasnost Defense Foundation, have issued reports condemning the lack of press freedoms in Tajikistan. By 2007 the murder of journalists had ceased, but that year Human Rights Watch criticized the government of Tajikistan for its move to "tighten control over independent media activities" and the fact that journalists critical of the government are "routinely threatened with prosecution". [7] In nearly every case of the killing of a journalist in Tajikistan, no suspects have been arrested or brought to trial.
Tajikistan, officially the Republic of Tajikistan, is a landlocked country in Central Asia. It has an area of 143,100 km2 (55,300 sq mi) and an estimated population of 9,749,625 people. Its capital and largest city is Dushanbe. It is bordered by Afghanistan to the south, Uzbekistan to the west, Kyrgyzstan to the north, and China to the east. It is separated narrowly from Pakistan by Afghanistan's Wakhan Corridor. The traditional homelands of the Tajiks include present-day Tajikistan as well as parts of Afghanistan and Uzbekistan.
Dushanbe is the capital and largest city of Tajikistan. As of January 2020, Dushanbe had a population of 863,400 and that population was largely Tajik. Until 1929, the city was known in Russian as Dyushambe, and from 1929 to 1961 as Stalinabad, after Joseph Stalin. Dushanbe is located in the Gissar Valley, bounded by the Gissar Range in the north and east and the Babatag, Aktau, Rangontau and Karatau mountains in the south, and has an elevation of 750–930 m. The city is divided into four districts, all named after historical figures: Ismail Samani, Avicenna, Ferdowsi, and Shah Mansur.
Gorno-Badakhshan, officially the Badakhshan Mountainous Autonomous Region, is an autonomous region in eastern Tajikistan, in the Pamir Mountains. It makes up nearly forty-five percent of the country's land area, but only two percent of its population.
Otakhon Latifi was a noted journalist and politician from Tajikistan.
Jews and Judaism in Tajikistan have a long and varied history. Many of the Tajik Jews were originally Bukharan Jews.
Sunni Islam is, by far, the most widely practiced religion in Tajikistan. Sunni Islam of the Hanafi school is the recognized religious tradition of Tajikistan since 2009. According to a 2009 U.S. State Department release, the population of Tajikistan is 98% Muslim,, with some Sufi orders.
The Tajikistani Civil War, also known as the Tajik Civil War, began in May 1992 when regional groups from the Garm and Gorno-Badakhshan regions of Tajikistan rose up against the newly formed government of President Rahmon Nabiyev, which was dominated by people from the Khujand and Kulob regions. The rebel groups were led by a combination of liberal democratic reformers and Islamists, who would later organize under the banner of the United Tajik Opposition. The government was supported by Russian border guards.
Meirkhaim Gavrielov was a Bukharan Jewish journalist murdered in Tajikistan.
The Pamiris are an Eastern Iranian ethnic group, native to the Badakhshan region of Central Asia, which includes the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region of Tajikistan; the Badakhshan Province of Afghanistan; Taxkorgan Tajik Autonomous County in Xinjiang, China; and the Upper Hunza Valley in Pakistan.
Sayid Abdulloh Nuri, also transliterated as Abdullah Nuri, led the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan from 1993 until he died of cancer in late 2006. During the Tajik Civil War of 1992 to 1997 he led the United Tajik Opposition. Nuri and President of Tajikistan Emomali Rakhmonov ended the civil war by signing the Tajik National Peace Accord in 1997.
Davlat Khudonazarov is a Tajik filmmaker, politician and human rights activist.
Arkady Abramovich Ruderman was a Belarusian documentary filmmaker who was killed during the Civil war in Tajikistan in 1992.
In parallel to what happened in other Soviet republics, a cinema of Tajikistan was promoted by the Soviet state, and declined in the first years after the independence, before being revitalized through the efforts of the new government.
The Gurminj Museum of Musical Instruments is a museum located in the center of Dushanbe, Tajikistan, behind the Office of the Mayor on Bokhtar Street.
Iskandar Khatloni was a journalist from Tajikistan who worked for Radio Free Europe and was murdered in Moscow, Russia while covering the Second Chechen War.
The Kulobi people, also spelt Kulyabi or Kulabi, are the inhabitants of the southwest area of Tajikistan.
The Popular Movement"Revival" was a political party in Tajikistan in the years of independence and civil war (1989–1997). It was founded on 14 September 1989, by members of the Tajik intelligentsia, among them Tohir Abdujabbor, with a moderate nationalist, secularist and liberal democratic program.
Umarali Quvvatov was a Tajikistani businessman and politician. He was the leader of the opposition Group 24. He was shot and killed on 5 March 2015 in Istanbul, Turkey.
The State Committee for National Security is the principal national security and intelligence agency of Tajikistan. Its main responsibilities include internal and border security, counter-intelligence, counter-terrorism, counter-narcotics, fighting organized crime, and surveillance. The chairman of the committee and all of his deputies are appointed by and answerable to the president of Tajikistan. Colonel General Saimumin Yatimov has served as the SCNS chairman since September 2, 2010.