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Almaty Authorities Okay Women’s Day Meeting, Reject March
The city council of Almaty, Kazakhstan’s biggest city, gave women’s and feminist organizations some of what they wanted, but not all they were asking.
After having three times denied these organizations permission to conduct a march and a public meeting on March 8, International Women’s Day, Almaty authorities approved the meeting, but again rejected the march.
The reason the city council offered for withholding permission was unconvincing.
The city council said all three of the designated areas for public meetings had already been reserved on March 8 by a little-known group called the League of Volunteers, and that same group had also already obtained approval for a march.
On February 5, 150 activists and rights defenders gathered in Almaty’s Gandhi Park to call on city authorities to allow the march and meeting.
The women’s groups trying to organize a march and meeting complained to the city council. On February 21, activists from Kazfem told a press conference they had filed a court case to force Almaty officials to grant permission.
That evening, the Almaty city council again rejected the march, but said the meeting could take place at Gandhi Park, not at the more centrally located square outside the Academy of Sciences as requested by the organizers.
This was unacceptable to some people and on February 23, two women – Zhamilya Kasymkhan and Moldir Zhumabaeva -- held one-person pickets demanding the march be allowed.
Kasymkhan and Zhumabaeva wanted to conduct their one-person protests at the same time, standing well apart from one another, but city officials refused to permit that.
Instead, the two women were each allowed to demonstrate for 45 minutes, first one, then the other.
Why It’s Important: As many of the organizers of the march and meeting pointed out, their right to hold public gatherings is guaranteed by the constitution.
Yet when organizers tried to obtain official permission in accordance with the law, they were denied their right to gather because of limited designated areas for public meetings.
It could also be pointed out that women’s groups in Almaty always apply to meet on International Women’s Day. Almaty authorities have a history of denying permission to hold women's rights events on March 8.
Authorities should have taken this into consideration before allocating all designated meeting areas to a single group on March 8.
Tajik Authorities Ban Home Prayer Meetings for Ismaili Muslims
The Tajik authorities’ campaign of repression against the Ismaili Muslim communities in eastern Tajikistan continues. Now those hosting prayer meetings at their homes are subject to fines.
International religious freedom organization Forum 18 reported on February 21 that freedom to practice their religion and support the Ismaili spiritual leader, the Aga Khan, is being curtailed.
The Ismaili Muslims of eastern Tajikistan’s remote Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast (GBAO) have been targeted since late 2021 when there was a protest after the killing of a local man.
In May 2022, when locals tried to demonstrate peacefully for the release of those arrested during the November 2021 protest, government forces responded using deadly force.
Tajik authorities are arguing about how many people were killed, but people in the region claim the number was in the dozens.
In the months after the violence, many influential GBAO residents were arrested. More than a dozen GBAO natives in Russia who posted support on social networks were forcibly returned to Tajikistan, where they were imprisoned.
Forum 18 reported in mid-January 2023 that local government officials told elders to spread the word that home prayer meetings were prohibited.
Group prayers are only allowed at official Ismaili center in the GBAO capital Khorugh.
Forum 18 said that two people have already been fined the equivalent of one-month’s salary after being caught hosting prayer meetings.
Other new prohibitions include banning educational or cultural activities in the country’s two Ismaili centers (one in Khorugh, the other in the Tajik capital Dushanbe).
Young Ismailis will no longer be allowed to travel to the UK to study at the Institute of Ismaili Studies.
Authorities also said people must remove portraits of the Aga Khan that hang in nearly every Ismaili home in GBAO.
Why It’s Important: People have called what has been happening in GBAO cultural genocide and it difficult to argue with that.
Hundreds of the best, brightest, and most influential GBAO natives have been arrested, and dozens are already serving lengthy prison sentences.
Everything connected with the Ismaili culture is gradually being banned.
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