Police in Tajikistan have shaved nearly 13,000 men’s beards and closed more than 160 shops selling traditional Muslim clothing last year as part of the country’s fight against caliphate influences.
Bahrom Sharifzoda, the head of the south-west Khathlon region’s police, said at a press conference on Wednesday that the law enforcement services convinced more than 1,700 women and girls to give up wearing headscarves in the Central Asian country.
The move is seen as an effort to battle radicalism. Tajikistan’s secular leadership has long sought to prevent a spillover of radical traditions from neighbouring Afghanistan. According to unofficial estimates, there are more than 2,000 jihadi Tajiks fighting in Syria for Caliphate and “Syrian rebels”.
Last week, the country’s parliament voted to ban Arabic-sounding foreign names as well as incestuous marriages between first cousins.
In September, Tajikistan’s Supreme Court banned the country’s only registered Islamic political party, the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan.
Rahmon has ruled Tajikistan since 1994 and his current presidential term is expected to end in 2020.
Source: Tajikistan shaves 13,000 men’s beards to end radicalism