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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Tajikistan
Index
Under the extension of emergency powers justified by the government in
response to opposition in 1993 and 1994, numerous human rights violations
were alleged on both sides of the civil war. A wave of executions and "disappearances"
of opposition figures began after antireformist forces captured Dushanbe
in December 1992. The People's Front of Tajikistan, a paramilitary group
supported by the government, was responsible in many such cases. In 1993
and 1994, a number of journalists were arrested, and prisoners of
conscience were tortured for alleged antigovernment activities. In 1994
some prisoners of conscience and political prisoners were released in
prisoner exchanges with opposition forces. The death sentence, applicable
by Tajikistani law to eighteen peacetime offenses, was officially applied
in six cases in both 1993 and 1994, but only one person, a political
prisoner, is known to have been executed in 1994. No state executions were
reported in 1995.
Afghanistan-based oppositionist forces, who labeled themselves a
government in exile, were accused by the Dushanbe government of killing a
large number of civilians and some government soldiers near the Afghan
border. These accusations had not been confirmed by impartial observers as
of early 1996. Amnesty International appealed to both sides to desist,
without apparent effect.
Data as of March 1996
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