Women’s clothes are high on the government’s agenda once again in Tajikistan, where authorities and Islamic leaders are working on new guidelines on what women should wear to work and during their leisure time.

The new dress code — the second of its kind in six years — is expected to be made public in the coming days, and a special event is reportedly being planned for the capital, Dushanbe, in August to showcase compliant clothes.

Sulaimon Davlatzoda, the head of the state Committee for Religious Affairs and the Regulation of Traditions, told a press briefing in the capital this week that “a joint task force of the Culture Ministry, the Women’s Committee, and the Religious Affairs Committee is working together to determine what clothes are most compatible with our national values and traditions.”

The new dress code comes after Tajikistan officially issued a ban in June on “clothes alien to Tajik culture,” a term widely used by officials to describe Islamic dress, which they treat as an outward sign of potential religious extremism.

Earlier this week, the Central Asian country’s state-backed Islamic Council of Ulema issued a fatwa — a religious edict — against “black clothes” as well as “tight-fitting and see-through” garments for women. In Tajikistan, the term “black clothes” tends to be a euphemism for the Islamic hijab.

The July 26 fatwa proclaimed that the color of black is not compatible with “our national and geographical characteristics.”

Echoing the government’s long-standing position on female clothing, the fatwa also promoted a national costume for Tajik women, which consists of a dress, trousers, and a kerchief.

The fatwa explained that the three-piece was fully in line with the Islamic practice mandating a woman cover her entire body, with the exception of her face, hands, and feet.

‘We Got The Message’

Tajik President Emomali Rahmon, who has been in power for more than 30 years, has been criticized by rights groups for clamping down on independent media, political pluralism, and also religious freedom. Religious beliefs and practices that deviate from the state-mandated norm are often seen by the authorities as a threat to Tajikistan’s stability and security.

Tajiks, especially those who wear the hijab, say they believe that the June hijab ban, the latest fatwa, and the upcoming guidelines on women’s clothing are a “needless, excessive step.”

“Black was already banned,” said Munisa, a nurse in a state hospital in a northern city who didn’t want to give her full name. She was referring to the state Religious Committee’s 2017 statement that prohibited wearing black at funerals.

Instead, the statement urged Tajik women to stick to the local tradition of wearing blue to mourn their dead.

“Nothing is new about the hijab ban, either. It’s been [effectively] in place for a decade at least,” Munisa said.

“We got the message already. There’s no need to keep repeating it, with new laws,” the 40-year-old nurse said.

Like many Tajiks, Munisa dismisses the fatwa against tight and see-through dresses as a smokescreen, saying the real target is Islamic dress, which the government considers “alien” and a threat to the secular government. For example, previous bans on miniskirts and plunging necklines have never been enforced.

In predominantly Muslim Tajikistan, a country of nearly 10 million people, the authorities’ campaign against the Islamic head scarf began in 2007 when the Education Ministry prohibited the hijab — and miniskirts — at schools and universities.

The ban eventually expanded to workplaces, and officials and police conducted raids to ensure its compliance.

Many hijab-wearing women faced a tough choice between their religious and cultural beliefs and their careers. Some quit their jobs or studies, while others — like Munisa — swapped their Islamic head scarf for the traditional kerchief.

Tajik men have also fallen afoul of government edicts in the past, with the authorities seeing them as suspect because of their long or bushy beards.

In 2015, a regional police chief in the southern Khatlon Province announced that nearly 13,000 men “with long and unkempt beards” were rounded up in the streets and bazaars over the course of the year and had their beards “brought to order.”

A high-ranking government official warned Tajik bloggers in 2023 that promoting beards might be interpreted as “an expression of solidarity with terrorist groups” and presents “a threat to national security.”

In 2018, the Culture Ministry published The Guidebook To Recommended Outfits In Tajikistan, which outlines acceptable designs, colors, and fabrics for clothing.

While the guidebook encouraged women to wear the Tajik national three-piece costume, for the office it suggested that they wear Western-style clothes, albeit with more modest necklines and hemlines.

It is not clear if the upcoming dress code will supersede the previous guideline.

New Crackdown

Some Dushanbe residents have complained that the recent official ban on “alien” clothes has prompted the authorities to crack down.

In Dushanbe, a group of hijab-wearing women were rounded up on May 22 by law enforcement officers and representatives of the local women’s affairs office and taken to the police station.

One of the women later told RFE/RL’s Tajik Service that their fingerprints and mugshots were taken and they were made to promise not to wear “alien” clothes ever again, before being released the same day.

On May 23, police in the capital’s Shohmansur district briefly detained 13 men with bushy beards and demanded that they shave. Police warned them they “will be arrested if caught again with long beards,” one of the men told RFE/RL.

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Egypt’s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said on Wednesday that global counterterrorism efforts must address and uproot the extremist and inflammatory ideologies that constitute the foundation for terrorist groups.

Shoukry made these remarks while participating in the 13th Global Counterterrorism Forum (GCTF), which he co-chaired with the High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, in New York.

According to the Egyptian Foreign Ministry, the Global Counterterrorism Forum is an essential platform for multilateral cooperation, allowing countries to exchange experiences and best practices in countering terrorism and extremism.

The forum was held alongside the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA 78). 

Shoukry began by highlighting the ongoing suffering of people in some nations due to the threat of terrorism and its evolving tactics.

He stressed the necessity of developing innovative countermeasures to keep pace with these organizations’ changing methods of operation while drying up their funding sources.

The Egyptian foreign minister also stressed the need to avoid past mistakes that provided safe havens for terrorist organizations and facilitated the movement of their members to other regions, leading to the proliferation of foreign fighters.

Furthermore, Shoukry emphasized Egypt’s adoption of a comprehensive national strategy to counter terrorism that considers the security, economic, and social dimensions of the phenomenon of terrorism.

He also highlighted Egypt’s long-standing awareness of the importance of rehabilitating and reintegrating former terrorists into society.

To demonstrate Egypt’s efforts in that direction, the Egyptian foreign minister pointed to the positive results achieved by the Egyptian Dar al-Iftaa’s 2017 project, “Anatomy of the Mind of the Extremist,” in combatting extremist ideologies, discourses, and ideas by using genuine Islamic sources to help former terrorists discover the pitfalls and shortcomings that characterize radical and fundamentalist discourse.

Moreover, Shoukry stressed the significance of regional cooperation among African countries, highlighting the role played by the Cairo Regional Center for Conflict Resolution, Peacekeeping, and Peacebuilding in providing capacity-building programs for African nations.

In May, Egypt officially assumed the co-chairmanship of the GCTF with the European Union (EU).

During its co-presidency of the forum, Egypt aspires to bolster its support for countries in implementing the UN Counterterrorism Strategy, enhancing national capacities, and garnering international political support to ensure the success of related endeavours.

Source: English Ahram

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