Several Tajik lawmakers released an open letter to the president on Wednesday objecting to the closing of many mosques in the ex-Soviet Central Asian nation. One opposition lawmaker told The Associated Press that, in the Tajik capital alone, three mosques had been razed and dozens of others closed by authorities. "We feel obliged to voice our discontent," said Khodzhi Akbar Turadzhonzoda, who was among those signing the letter. Muhiddin Kabiri, the head of the opposition Islamic Revival Party (IRP) and one of the letter's authors, told the AP it was intended to draw President Emomali Rakhmon's attention to "anti-constitutional and anti-Islamic actions" by authorities. Rakhmon's secular government fought a five-year civil war against mostly Islamic opposition - a war that killed 100,000 people and made Tajikistan one of the poorest countries in the world.