Country: Tajikistan
Group: Uzbek
Date Finalized: 4/26/2020
Team: Maya Shrikant (lead), Leilani Alva, Johanna McCombs
The Uzbek in Tajikistan speak an eastern Turkish language, are predominantly Sunni Muslims and currently make up around 12.2 percent of the population which has decreased from 23.5 percent in 1989. Before the civil war in Tajikistan there was widespread bilingualism and intermarriage of Tajiks influenced by the Uzbek, which later the Tajiks accused the Uzbeks of ‘ethnic cleansing’. There have been long standing conflicts between the minority ethnic Uzbek population and majority Tajiks in the regions traditionally inhabited by the minority. In 1994, tensions were strained because of resettlement projects and disarmament campaigns launched by the government that targeted Uzbek populations. In 1998, a crisis point was reached after a major government official blamed ethnicity for the region’s secessionist issues. The Uzbek population suffered wide killings and many fled for bordering countries. In 2006, a transmigration program was implemented to allow Tajiks to take over strategic areas traditionally inhabited by members of the Uzbek minority. Today, ethnic Uzbeks face mounting discrimination in the form of lack of access to education materials, lack of language in nationalist conversation, conversion of traditional schools and exclusion from political life and administrative rules. Many outspoken Uzbek leaders against the government have gone missing or were found killed. Due to these evebts, many ethnic Uzbeks have attempted to assimilate into Tajik society, by requesting their children be registered as Tajik in the national census. Data quality is a rated 2, because Minority Rights was a singular comprehensive source which included details fitting the code. No books or academic sources were found.
Sources
- Minority Rights Group(n.d.). Uzbeks. Retrieved April 26, 2020, from https://minorityrights.org/minorities/uzbeks-3/