OCT. 2 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – So the fate of the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT) appears to have been sealed by the country’s highest court. It is, apparently, a terrorist organisation that helped plan a couple of attacks last month on police checkpoints which killed two dozen people.

A former deputy defence minister has been named as the mastermind of the attacks but the IRPT also played an important role, the court said.

This is the culmination of a ramping up of pressure on the IRPT this year. Its leaders have been forced out of the country, some of its top Dushanbe-based officials have been attacked in the street and various courts have banned it for, firstly not being big enough and secondly for its involvement in the September attacks.

To really prove its case, the Tajik judiciary needs to release more concrete evidence to the international community of the IRPT’s apparent involvement in the attacks. At the moment it just doesn’t stack up.

Instead, as an analyst told the Bulletin’s correspondent in Dushanbe, it feels like a blatant attack on political opponents.

This is dangerous for Tajikistan. What Tajikistan needs is a moderate opposition group that is going to challenge the authorities and President Emomali Rakhmon through the normal channels. What it’ll get instead, with the crushing of opposition groups, is a vacuum that radical Islamists can exploit.

Tajikistan stands at a cross- roads. By banning the IRPT, the authorities are disenfranchising part of its population and taking another step along the wrong path.

By James Kilner, Editor, The Conway Bulletin