Around 70 students shouted slogans accusing Turkey and EU countries of allowing members of the banned Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT) to hold meetings.

“Bring the traitors to the homeland” they shouted. “We came here to express our dissatisfaction with the fact that the traitors are given the opportunity to organize protest meetings (abroad).”

Reports from northern Tajikistan also said a group of students had protested outside the office of the OSCE, Europe’s democracy and human rights watchdog, in Khujand.

Students have previously demonstrated against the IRPT, although they have denied that they had been organised and paid by the government to mount the protests.

This explanation, though, didn’t sit with most analysts’ reading of the demonstrations. In Dushanbe, an analyst who asked to remain anonymous, told The Conway Bulletin’s Dushanbe correspondent that the authorities must have organised the demonstration as no protest could take place without their approval.

“Tajik authorities do not understand that Western countries and Turkey will not be affected by such protests and will not extradite the political refugees,” said the analyst.

Other observers likened the organised protests to Nashi, the youth movement organised by the Kremlin in the late 2000s to hound its enemies. Well funded and single- minded, Nashi gained notoriety for its determined and lengthy demonstrations against foreign ambassadors and democracy advocates.

Last year, the Tajik government outlawed the IRPT, the country’s only formal opposition party. Human rights groups have complained that the government aims to crack down on free speech.

ENDS