People in Tajikistan had expected a crackdown by the government after Tajik men were arrested and charged with a terrorist attack on a Moscow concert hall in March.
But it still seemed excessive to Nilufar, a 27-year-old educator, when she approached local authorities outside a KFC in Dushanbe, Tajikistan’s capital, with scissors for a beard deemed too long.
Excessive, but not surprising. In the span of a month, Nilufar was stopped three times by the authorities herself for wearing hijab in public.
“Nowadays, as soon as you go out, you can really feel how the raids have intensified,” Nilufar said in a recent interview in Dushanbe, giving only her first name for fear of reprisals.
With a population of 10 million, most of whom are Muslim, counter-terrorism experts say Tajikistan faces many challenges. Make it an incubator for extremism: Grievances against poverty, poor education, high unemployment, and an autocratic government that strictly restricts the practice of religion.
In the face of these challenges, critics say, Tajikistan has continued How Islam can be taught and practiced and to increasingly implement superficial policies governing the length of headscarves and beards.
Then the country came under global scrutiny Four Tajik men were charged as the attackers in Deadliest terrorist attack in Russia in two decadesIn which 145 people were killed and more than 500 were injured in a Moscow concert hall. Other Tajiks were later arrested in connection with the attack.
American officials have said that the Islamic State in Khorasan province is an ISIS branch Known as ISIS-Kwas responsible for the attack, and in recent months radicalized Tajiks have drawn the attention of governments and counter-terrorism experts around the world.
Tajik followers of the Islamic State have also been involved in terrorist attacks in Iran and Turkey, as well as foiled plots in Germany, Austria and elsewhere. Two Tajiks helped on stage last month Rebellion in a Russian prisonState news agency TASS reported, adding that they claimed to be inspired by radical Islam.
The attack has tarnished the country’s image abroad. Especially in Russiawhere nearly one million Tajiks – 10 percent of Tajikistan’s population – toil in low-skilled jobs to send money home.
The government’s response, overseen by President Emomali Rahmon, an authoritarian ruler who has been in power for more than three decades, is to crack down.
“In Tajikistan, the authorities are getting frustrated by the international stigma and the blame they’re getting for all these attacks,” said Lucas Weber, co-founder of Militant Wire, whose research focuses on the Islamic State. “So they’re just doubling down, heavy-handed.”
Tajiks have long been accustomed to restrictions that surprise many Westerners, including laws to regulate conduct at weddings, birthdays and even funerals (banning “extravagant sentiments” at memorials). The hijab – a headscarf that covers a woman’s neck and usually does not reveal any strands of hair – has been banned in schools since 2007 and in public institutions since 2009.
But in June, parliament passed a law banning “clothing unfamiliar to Tajik culture,” a term the government often uses for clothing deemed Islamic. Hijab is a goal.
The law imposes fines of between 7,000 and 15,000 somoni, or about $660 and $1,400, where the average monthly salary is above $200.
The logic seems to be that removing public symbols of conservative Islam will help curb conservative Islam itself – and potentially help reduce Islamic extremism.
But Mr Weber said the government’s response only added fuel to the fire.
“The terrorists who planned the Moscow attack could not have asked for a better response from the Tajik government,” he said. “Because they want to build tension, they want a reaction.”
Several Tajik government agencies responsible for law enforcement declined to be interviewed by The New York Times in Dushanbe or to respond to emailed requests for comment.
Tajikistan is a mountainous country in Central Asia bordering Afghanistan, China, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. It is heavily dependent on Russia economically and its leaders maintain a very close relationship.
Outside the KFC, Nilufar and a friend were approached by several women with men shaving their beards. The women said they were from the Women and Family Affairs Committee, a government body that advises on and implements state policy. They asked both women to remove their head scarves.
Nilufar tried to explain that she did not usually cover her head, but was mourning her mother’s death.
“The women told me, ‘This is all being done for a reason,'” Nilufar said. Many Tajiks were involved in terrorist attacks, they told her, as radicals came to the country from Afghanistan.
“They wear long beards and their wives cover their heads,” she said the women told her, adding that it was difficult for officers to catch them, “because we dress like them, and it’s hard to tell the difference.”
The women wanted to punish Nilufar. She called an uncle with government connections, who told him to leave her alone.
But when she was stopped a third time in June, she said, this time by police, she had to spend the night in a cell because she refused to sign a document admitting to breaking the law.
“When I got to the station, there were already about 15, maybe even 17 women sitting in the cell wearing headscarves, including an old woman in her 50s at least,” he said.
In the morning, the station chief came – an acquaintance from her university course – and released her. “My husband was angry with me, and worried,” Nilufar said. But he understood what she was going through: He spent five nights in jail before agreeing to shave his beard.
After the experience, Nilufar eventually decided to stop wearing her hijab, as she worried that the stain on her record would hinder her ability to work.
Such policing is central to ISIS-K propaganda published in Tajik among other languages, said Ricardo Valle, director of research at The Khorasan Diary, a research and media platform about the terrorist group.
The campaign also largely follows a crackdown on Tajiks in Russia, where authorities have raided migrant dormitories housing Central Asian guest workers, and requested documents from people in public places, effectively racially profiling them.
Experts interviewed by The Times said the strategy of strictly monitoring physical appearance is not an effective way to fight extremism, as it breeds resentment. It was also ineffective, they argued, as radical extremists could try to remain inconspicuous by avoiding outward signs of religiosity.
Family members of the two men accused of carrying out the Moscow attacks said neither showed any outward signs of religiosity.
“My son was never a practicing Muslim,” said Gulrakat Mirzoyeva, 59, the mother of Dalerzon Mirzoyev, one of those charged in the attack. “Sometimes he prayed, but not really.”
All four accused attackers had been working in Russia for at least several months, some making frequent trips in and out. Many experts say it is not just poverty at home but the humiliating experiences of migration that drive Tajik citizens into the hands of militants.
Tajiks who join groups like ISIS-K are “almost all Tajiks who were migrant laborers and became radicalized outside of Tajikistan through social networks,” said Bruce Panier, a Central Asia fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia.
Mr. Mirzoyev served four six- to eight-month stints in Russia to support his wife and their four children. Their homes in a dusty village on the Tajik steppe have no running water.
Shamsuddin Faridooni, accused in the attack, became an observant Muslim after serving time in prison. His mother, Muyasara Zargarova, insisted that he was not an extremist.
She said he often went to work in Russia because of financial pressure. First he needed to pay for his wedding, then for medical help when his wife developed pregnancy complications. And when the baby was born with breathing problems, he and his brother went back to find work once again.
After the concert hall attack, Tajik authorities have increased security cooperation with Moscow. Mr. Rahmon has also enhanced ties with Beijing, albeit with China denied media reports that it is building a base in northwestern Tajikistan.
The United States and Tajikistan signed an agreement in May to use software that will notify U.S. officials in real time if travelers deemed suspicious enter Tajikistan.
But the state needs to do more, said Larisa Alexandrova, a Dushanbe-based expert on human rights.
Instead of tackling serious problems like corruption, poverty and social inequality, she said, the state “is focused on where to put a comma in a sentence, what to name a certain ministry or what clothes, for example, women or men should wear.”
“It distracts us by talking about issues that, in my opinion, are not that relevant,” she said.
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