[PUBLISH.TWITTER]
Tajikistan’s human rights
...which are usually entirely different from personal liberty ...
violations have become the focus of the international community’s attention. To this day, its residents face restrictions on their basic rights due to government corruption and its systematic violation of the rights of its citizens, which impedes the processes of social and democratic reform in the country.
Al-Estiklal received a copy of the Intelligence Online’s report published on January 5, 2022, revealing that after a two-week visit to Tajikistan, UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders Mary Lawlor on December 9 accused the Tajik government of creating a "climate of fear" in the country and harassing dissidents, subjecting some to show trials and imprisoning them.
Last February, the US Ambassador to Tajikistan, John Pommersheim, and Tajikistan’s Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs, Ramazan Rahimzadeh, attended the handover ceremony of a facility set up for the ministry’s OMON gendarmerie-like paramilitary force.
OMON UNITS
The Intelligence Online report disclosed that OMON is charged with special operations and counter-terrorism and is also involved in arrests, interrogations, and torture of Pamiri civilians.
| Pamiris are considered Tajik by the authorities, but others define them as a separate ethnic group, differing from Tajiks in terms of language, religion and culture. Pamiri languages are a Southeastern branch of the Iranian language family. Additionally, while most Tajiks are Sunni, Pamiris are Ismaili Shiites. |
The US Central Command’s Drug Enforcement Program (CENTCOM) provided funding to build the facility.
Last August, Tajikistan’s President Rahmon presented promotions and medals to army officers who managed operations in the Pamir region of the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region.
During the ceremony, a video showed OMON soldiers searching the bodies of killed Pamiri men deemed as "terrorists," and putting weapons on their bodies to take pictures, which human rights defenders opposed.
That same month, Pommersheim visited Gorno-Badakhshan to attend the Pamir-Invest Forum and met with the province’s governor "to discuss areas of bilateral cooperation," in the words of the US embassy.
Pommersheim also established a friendly relationship with Tajik General Saimumin Yatimov, who has headed the state apparatus of national security since 2010 and is considered one of the most powerful people in the country. Yatimov worked during his career in various fields, including education, but a leaked cable from the US State Department in 2005 described him as a "professional KGB officer."
Pommersheim relied on his deputy, John Ginkel—an expert on Afghanistan and counter-terrorism, who headed the State Department’s Bureau of Afghan Affairs and served on the US Embassy’s counternarcotics task force—until September 2021 before being replaced by Bridgette Walker, former employee of the US State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research who served in Baku, Alexandria, and Lebanon Hezbollahstan
 ...The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years. It produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. That's three statements. Only the first is subjective....
While he was ambassador, the United States provided assistance to Yatimov’s border forces, receiving in November 2021 Jeep cars worth nearly $1 million and in March last year trucks, radios, and spare parts worth $1.1 million.
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