Tajiks living near the Afghan border are concerned about a recent increase in robberies, and claim that trespassing Afghans are to blame, RFE/RL’s Tajik Service reports.

In the latest incident, in the village of Porshev in Badakhshan region, resident Saidmirzo Ibrohimbekov reported that he frightened away a would-be thief who was trying to steal saplings from his back yard. Ten minutes later, Ibrohimbekov said, a group of men toting machine guns and speaking in Dari with Afghan accents returned to the yard and absconded with the young trees.

Police in the village confirmed that the number of robberies in the region has increased in recent months, but they said that no suspects have been apprehended.

The photo of the Tajik-Afghan border posted at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty shows a concrete bridge across a river, barbed wire, and lots of dirt—but not one tree in sight.

Since the launch, his blog has received thousands of comments, many of them critical of the government. So far so good.

But the spirit of openness appears to have ended, as messages from ordinary citizens are being censored.

Readers in the northern city of Stepnogorsk contacted RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service to say that they had left comments on the blog, which appeared but then were seemingly removed. They had been complaining about problems with their drinking water.

A law limiting free expression on the internet is currently being discussed in Kazakhstan’s Parliament.

Stores in the city of Chally, in the Republic of Tatarstan, are offering discount “anti-crisis bread” in a move that looks suspiciously like an effort to boost one candidate’s chances of reaching parliament.

A loaf of the specially labeled good costs 8 or 9 rubles, while other bread typically costs around 18 rubles a loaf.

If Mr Yunysov fails to win his seat at the 1 March election, watch for Tatarstan’s era of cheap bread to come to an abrupt end.

An Uzbek cleric is urging women not to wear the Muslim hijab, or head scarf, as the number of women wearing religious dress has significantly increased in Uzbekistan, RFE/RL’s Uzbek Service reports.

Anvar Qori Tursunov, the imam of Tashkent’s Central Mosque, told women to return to their national dress and to keep a distance from “foreign influences.” Tursunov said on Uzbek state TV that “Foreign clothes will bring foreign ideology, which is dangerous for Uzbekistan.”

Tajikistan’s Council of Islamic Clerics said the same thing a few months ago.

Religious leaders and human rights groups are criticising Kazakhstan’s restrictive proposed law, but officials with the Justice Ministry accuse them of “openly lying”.

Ministry officials claimed that “benevolent conditions” have been created for religious communities. The Law has been condemned by many religious leaders, such as Protestant leaders and Murat Telibekov of the Union of Muslims. Fr Vsevolod Chaplin of the Moscow Patriarchate pointed out to Forum 18 News Service that, under the proposed Law, “if a young person is walking past and goes into a mosque during prayers, the imam could be arrested.” Fr Chaplin pointed out that he was himself a believer at the age of 13, against the wishes of his parents, which would be forbidden by the Law.

Pope Benedict XVI has taken notice of Kazakhstan’s actions and cautioned the Kazakh Ambassador to the Holy See that the state must respect the proper boundaries between the political and religious and avoid “interfering” with individual consciences.

Kazakhstan’s Parliament has approved the law and it now awaits the president’s signature.

In Tajikistan, churches and mosques will have to be shut down if, as expected, Parliament passes legislation requiring re-registration with the government.

The draft text reportedly enforces state controls over the activity of religious organisations, limits religious education and imposes government censorship over religious literature. “If passed, all of Tajikistan’s religious organisations will be obliged to re-register either as ‘religious organisations’ or as ‘religious communities’, the latter having no legal status,” CSW said. “Many may lose their legal status and some could face closure due to harsher criteria for registration,” the group added.

The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe has also expressed concerns, saying the law’s provisions are too vague and leave too much discretion in the hands of local authorities.

In an unusual move, Tajikistan President Emomali Rakhmon personally sent the draft legislation to Parliament.

Hoji Akbar Turajonzoda calls the textbook writers’ attitude to Islam “unprofessional, irrational, and sometimes insulting and offensive”.  He accuses education officials of deliberately using misleading books in order to “poison” pupils’ minds.

Mr Turajonzoda is a Muslim cleric, former leader of the Islamic political opposition, and presently sits in Tajikistan’s Senate.

Turajonzoda, who is a member of Tajikistan’s upper house of parliament, said the textbooks portray the Prophet Muhammad as a creator of a new religion — not as the messenger of God — and suggest that Islam and the Koran were no more than “the product of the prophet’s dreams and imagination.”

According to Turajonzoda, some of the textbooks, including “The History of the Middle Ages” for sixth-grade students, distort the very principle of Islam, claiming some of God’s messages and orders were in fact the prophet’s suggestions.
[…]
Turajonzoda says he was “outraged and appalled” that the book alleges that the three issues were some sort of political agreement reached between the prophet and leaders of a tribe in Mecca.

Education officials defend the books, saying the information was “taken from appropriate Arab-language and other religious sources”. Education Minister Abdujabbor Rahmonov says the textbooks will be revised—eventually.

Although Tajikistan’s population is over 90% Muslim, the government has pursued an increasingly oppressive secularist policy.  Wearing hijabs (Muslim head scarves) has been forbidden in public schools and government offices.  Legislation imposing tight restrictions on religious activities has been sent to the president for comment and is expected to become law within a month.

So much for the argument made by many Muslims in other countries that the hijab is a religious requirement of Islam. According to that view, women who do not wear a head scarf violate Islamic teaching.

Just a slight difference in perspective there.

In an official meeting with clerics and imams last week, the country’s Council of Islamic Clerics suggested that “foreign-made” hijabs are unsuitable for women in Tajikistan.

Instead, the clerics have encouraged Tajik women to switch to the national costume, which consists of a dress reaching below the knee, worn with trousers. The color and length of the national costume vary depending on women’s individual tastes. A hijab is considered optional.
[…]
Cleric Qobiljon Boev, the head of the fatwa department at the council, says the clerics believe the imported hijabs “do not meet Islamic standards.” He said the hijabs “seem to be too tight.”
[...]
Tajik girls should wear our national costume. Those [imported] hijabs are not compatible with real Islamic standards, and we – as representatives of an Islamic center, the Council of Islamic Clerics – oppose those hijabs that don’t meet Islamic requirements.”

The news story suggests that the government, which has been trying to suppress the hijab, may have pressured the council to stand this stand. Even so, if council members viewed hijab-wearing as a bona fide requirement for Muslim women, it is doubtful they would have agreed to issue a statement saying otherwise.