Tajikistan goes after grifters

Halloween is not really a thing in Tajikistan, Central Asia’s poorest nation with a mostly Muslim population. But President Emomali Rahmon got in the spirit of the season with an announcement that 1,500 individuals have been detained in the country for engaging in “witchcraft and fortune-telling.”

An October 30 report distributed by Khovar, the official Tajik government news agency, said the round-up was carried out “after instructions by the head of state.” It did not indicate when or where the detentions occurred, or what kind of punishments, if any, the detainees are facing.

The Khovar report appears to use witchcraft as a catch-all term for purveyors of superstition, charlatans, con-artists and clairvoyants who provide bogus advice and services to credulous citizens in exchange for some form of payment. In May, the government criminalized fortune-telling and similar services, portraying their practitioners as grifters.

In addition, Khovar noted that the government is concerned about the quality of religious instruction. “More than 5,000 semi-literate mullahs were registered with internal affairs bodies for fanaticism,” according to Khovar, which provided no additional details.

Rahmon’s government has tightened control over religious expression in the country in recent years, amid concerns about the spread of radical Islamic beliefs. In June, Tajik government policies drew criticism from the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, which asked the Biden Administration to address the issue.

“It is troubling to witness the recent onslaught of harassment against those who express their faith in ways that do not correspond with the state’s preferred interpretation,” said USCIRF Commissioner Susie Gelman in a statement. “We urge the U.S. government to condition security assistance to the Tajik government on reform of the traditions law, the 2009 religion law, and all other legislation that criminalizes the peaceful expression of religion in the country.”