Tajikistan’s battle against beards

Djovid Akramov says he was stopped by Tajik police outside his house, along with his seven-year-old son, last month – and taken to the police station in Dushanbe where he was forcibly shaved.

He became one of hundreds of thousands of men in Tajikistan arrested in recent years for wearing a beard.

Shaving beards is part of a government campaign targeting trends that are deemed “alien and inconsistent with Tajik culture”.

Earlier this week, police in Tajikistan’s Khatlon region said that they had shaved the beards of nearly 13,000 men as part of an “anti-radicalisation campaign”.

The government campaign is explained by the need to fight radicalisation, amid fears that Central Asia might follow the path of countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq or Syria towards extremism.

The move against beards is seen as part of a broader government campaign against the adoption of Islamic cultural practices in Tajik society, and to preserve secular traditions.

‘Black is also forbidden’

The campaign also affects women.

There is an official ban on wearing hijabs in schools and universities – but in practice it is enforced in all state institutions.

Police convinced 1,773 women to stop wearing hijabs and have closed about 160 shops where hijabs were being sold over the past years.

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

“Even in mourning, Tajik women [should] wear white, not black,” he said.

It is not clear whether these policies will have an impact on preventing radicalism.