Hijab Ban in Tajikistan: Know all details and reasons behind government’s decision here

The Upper House of the Tajikistan parliament called the Majlisi Milli and approved a draft bill on June 19, 2024 formally banning the Hijab for Muslim women in the country. Radio Liberty Europe reported the major update saying that Emomali Rahmon led Tajik government passed the bill which vans alien garments as well as the celebration by the children during two major Islamic festivals, Eid-ul Fitr and Eid-al Adha or Bakrid.

The bill was passed in the Lower House of the Tajik parliament earlier on June 9, 2024. It will ban the bearing, importing, selling and advertising of clothes alien to Tajik culture, a term widely used by the officials in the country to describe Islamic clothing. Penalties from the offenders range from approximately 740 USD to 5,400 USD for legal entities. Government officials and religious authorities face significantly higher fines with penalties of 3,700 USD and 5,060 USD respectively if found guilty.

The draft bill is expected to be signed into the law by the President Rahmon soon. “The Amended version of the draft law includes ban on clothing deemed foreign to the Tajik culture,” the country’s lawmakers Mavloudakhon Mirzoyeva said. The history of putting restrictions on Islamic culture and efforts to promote Tajik culture is not new. The clampdown on Hijab began in the year 2007 extending all public institutions and leading to marker raids and street fines.

Authorities have promoted national dress, sending messages in 2017, urging women to wear Tajik clothes and also released a 376-page guidebook on recommended outfits according to a West Asian media agency. Tajikistan has also unofficially banned beards, with thousands of men reportedly having their beards forcibly shaved by the police over the past decade.

As per the Radio Liberty Europe, many residents in Dushanbe, the capital of the mountainous Central Asian country of Tajikistan have expressed that they don’t support a ban on certain types of clothes because they believe people should be free to choose what clothes they want to wear.

Apart from Tajikistan, its two neighbours, namely Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan have banned the Hijab. Some schools in Astana (capital of Kazakhstan) banned head scarves in 2017. A year later, the government proposed a ban on people wearing headscarves, niqabs and other similar forms of clothing in public. In Kyrgyzstan, some schools banned Muslim students from wearing headscarves from attending classes in 2011, 2012 and 2015.

The government of Uzbekistan, a landlocked nation in Central Asia, in 2012 banned selling of religious clothing such as hijabs and face veils in the market. In 2018, an Uzbek Imam was sacked by officials after her urged the country’s president to lift a ban on religious symbols including the hijab.

In Asia, China has placed a stringent ban on all types of Islamic clothing, including the Hijab publicly. The Russian Federation also banned the Hijab intensely especially in two regions, the Republic of Mordovia and Stavropol Territory.

In Europe, Austria and France are the two leading nations that have placed a ban on Hijab and other Islamic clothing.  In 2019, Vienna placed a ban on headscarves for children upto the age of ten years to promote equality among men and women.

France on the other hand is very strict about the secularism and has banned the Hijab along with the Abaya in its schools and educational institutions. Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, Denmark and Belgium are other nations in Europe who have banned the Hijab in their respective countries.

In the Balkan countries, Bosnia and Herzegovina, wearing the Hijab and other religious symbols in courts and institutions. Presently, the Muslim women employed in judicial institutions are prohibited to wear Hijab to work. Moving on to North America, Canada has banned wearing of religious attire for all public servants in positions of authority.  In Africa, Muslim dominated nations such as Tunisia (North Africa), Chad, Cameroon and Republic of Congo in Central Africa have done the same in their countries.