Though the religious identity of the Tajik population is more than 90% Muslim, the government takes measures to increase secularism throughout the country.  A deterioration of religious freedom came in 2009 when the government passed restrictive laws for religious groups including criminalizing unregistered religious activity and private religious education and restricting Muslim prayer to mosques, homes, cemeteries and shrines. These measures are taken out of fear of extremist actions that have been widespread in neighboring countries—specifically Afghanistan, which shares a 800 mile border with Tajikistan—but also because of the history of government opposition by Muslims dating back to the civil war.

 

As a result of fear of Islamic extremism, the government has taken action to suppress Islam. In January of 2016, police shaved around 13,000 men’s beards in an attempt to “battle radicalism.” More than 160 shops selling traditional Muslim clothing were also closed to fight against “foreign influences.” Many mosques closed down, and women and children were banned from attending others. The country’s parliament voted to ban Arabic-sounding “foreign names.” Women have been banned from wearing the hijab in schools which enforce secularism. And in September of 2015, the Supreme Court banned the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRP), the country’s only registered Islamic political party, and one of the few political parties in opposition to the Democratic Party of Tajikistan, of which President Rahmon is the leader.

 

Tensions between the government and the IRP have intensified to the point of violence. In 2015, an armed group killed four police in a shootout outside of Dushanbe. The attacks were linked with the IRP, but the party denied association with the suspects. Another report tells the story of a young man who was fatally beaten by police because he wore a beard.

 

The Tajik government has also begun attacking the IRP online in the form of a propaganda campaign. In 2013, state TV broadcast a program of Tajiks from different towns and districts discussing why the Islamic political party should be banned. In a more extreme and obvious attack, pro-government activists created fake Facebook pages for opposition leaders, and even published several sex videos with IRP leaders' names in the captions.