Tajikistan 'fights radicalisation' by Shaving off 13,000 beards and shutting shops selling hijab:

Tajikistan fights radicalization | WorldMuslimCongress.com

January 23, 2016 - The Government of Jumhurii Tojikiston (Democratic nation of Tajikistan) has brutally imposed its way of life on her citizens by, "Shaving off 13,000 beards, shutting shops selling hijab: Tajikistan 'fights radicalisation' in Khatlon region of the country.
My advise to the government of  Tajikistan to abandon the impositions and institute educational programs to deradicalize individuals.  I will be happy to consult in building cohesive Islamic societies, where we learn to respect the otherness of others and accept the God given uniqueness of each one us, and if we do that conflicts fade and solutions will emerge for effectively functioning societies. 

My article will be available with the title, "Tajikistan fights radicalization"
Mike Ghouse

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Shaving off 13,000 beards, shutting shops selling hijab: Tajikistan 'fights radicalisation'
DAWN.COM http://www.dawn.com/news/1234918 � UPDATED 15 MINUTES AGO
      
TAJIKISTAN: As part of an "anti-radicalisation campaign", police in the Khatlon region reportedly shaved the beards of 13,000 men and shut down 160 shops selling the hijab, reported BBC earlier this week.

According to the report, hundreds of thousands of men have been arrested in recent years for adopting mannerisms "alien and inconsistent with Tajik" culture � maintaining a beard is considered among the gravest of these offences.

The BBC interviewed nine men who said they had been detained in the street and forcibly taken to the police department for an arrest, or to a barber shop to be shaved.

Women are given their own prescriptions: their dress, the government has stated, must be in traditional Tajik colours. Black, the colour most commonly associated with the burqa, is automatically outlawed in these circumstances.

"Even in mourning, Tajik women [should] wear white, not black," President Emomali Rakhmon has warned the Tajiks.


The fear of 'alien values'
President Emomali Rahmon has been ruling the country since 1994 and is soon expected to approve a legislation that will promote secular values, which includes banning Arabic-sounding and "foreign" names officially.

With sections of the Middle East and Asia falling to extremism and militancy, the Central Asian states increasingly fear the spread of radicalisation.

Estimates suggest that between 1,500 and 4,000 Central Asians could have joined different militant groups in Syria, as of June 2015.

Women have been told to "wear clothes of traditional colours and cut, not black." �AFP
Women have been told to "wear clothes of traditional colours and cut, not black." �AFP
In response, countries like Tajikistan have launched official campaigns and taken measures that discourage Islamic cultural practices. In September last year, Tajikistan's Supreme Court banned the Islamic Renaissance Party, which is the only registered Islamic political party in the Muslim-majority country, Al Jazeera reported.

President Rakhmon has also warned Tajiks: "Don't worship alien values, don't follow alien culture. Wear clothes of traditional colours and cut, not black."

The fight for secular values
The fight to maintain secular values has affected men, women and children alike. The state has placed a ban on hijabs in all educational institutions, and state institutions follow the same rule.

Parents are discouraged from giving their children Arabic names, and are pressured to opt for more traditional and familiar Tajik names.

According to the BBC report, Tajik police said they shut down 160 shops that sold the hijab, and convinced over 1,500 women to stop wearing the Islamic code of dress.

In the south-west region of Khathlon, police reported that law enforcement agencies have successfully convinced over 1500 women to stop wearing headscarves.

Even though Tajikistan is a 99% Muslim, atheism was encouraged during 70 years of Soviet rule.

'Do not shave'

One man, Djovid Akramov, said he was outside his house with his seven-year-old son when the police intercepted him and rushed him to a station to remove his beard.

"They called me a Salafist, a radical, a public enemy," Djovid told the BBC. "And then two of them held my arms while another one shaved half of my beard."

Shaving off men's beards is not an unprecedented response to battling extremism, since growing a beard is a traditional Islamic practice.

The Taliban have particularly warned men against shaving their beards. In Pakistan, a barber shop in Buner was found with a 'do not shave' warning written across its front window, reportedly by militants.

Upper Dir Barbers in the town of Darora were also warned to stop shaving beards, the residents told Dawn in 2008. A threatening leaflet was circulated by a group of the Taliban, after which barbers stopped trimming and shaving beards completely.

Once magnet for Foreign Mujahedeen�, Bosnia now exports them

Thousands of Bosnian Muslims "have adopted the ultraconservative Salafist brand of Sunni Islam... and their ranks are suspected of supplying scores of fighters to the wars in the Middle East�"

by Rusmir Smajilhodzic, AFP, April 29, 2015

h/t Jihad Watch

Church in Kosovo destroyed by Bosnian Muslims

A magnet for foreign jihadists during its 1990s war, Bosnia is now grappling with the threat from home-grown extremists wooed by the conflicts in Iraq and Syria.

While most Bosnian Muslims are moderates, a few thousand have adopted the ultraconservative Salafist brand of Sunni Islam introduced by the fighters who flocked to Bosnia from North Africa, the Middle East and Asia during the 1992-1995 conflict between Serbs, Muslims and Croats.

Most of those foreign fighters, or �mujahedeen�, left Bosnia when the war ended.

But the seed had already been sown. Twenty years on, the radical preachers giving fiery sermons in �mesdzids�, or improvised prayer halls, are no longer foreigners.

Those taking up arms are also local men.

On Monday, a gunman shouting �Allahu Akbar� (�God is greatest� in Arabic) opened fire on a police station in the eastern town of Zvornik, killing one officer and wounding two others before being killed in a shootout.

The assailant, identified as 24-year-old Nerdin Ibric from a village near the northeastern town of Zvornik, was suspected of links to radical Islamist groups. Another man, said to have travelled to Syria, was arrested Tuesday over the attack.

Suspected Islamist extremists had made their presence felt before in the Balkan country.

In October 2011, a gunman opened fire on the US embassy in Sarajevo, wounding a policeman before being injured himself and arrested.

In June of the previous year, a man set off an explosive device at a police station in the central town of Bugojno, killing one officer and wounding six others in what the government called a �terrorist act�.

� Prayer room recruitment �

Would-be jihadists are suspected of being recruited by radical preachers, operating through a network of informal prayer rooms.

�There is no doubt that the recruitment process is possible due to the existence of a network of such places of worship,� Esad Hecimovic, a local journalist who has reported extensively on the subject told AFP.

Hardliners, whose numbers are estimated by the authorities at around 3,000 followers, represent just a fraction of Bosnian Muslims, who make up around 40 per cent of the population of 3.8 million.

But their ranks are suspecting of supplying scores of fighters to the wars in the Middle East�.