When Is an Autonomous Territory Not Autonomous? When Tajik State Media Says so? · Global Voices
Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast (GBAO) marked in red. Tajikistan borders Afghanistan to the South, China to the East, Kyrgyzstan to the North and Uzbekistan to the West. Wikipedia image.
In recent months, ex-Soviet Tajikistan's state media has stopped calling the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region (GBAO) autonomous, a trend that has caused irritation among the fiercely independent minority population that inhabits the restive territory.
GBAO — defined topographically by the soaring Pamir mountain range and culturally by the Pamiri Ismailis that make up most of its 200,000 plus population — was first formed according to a decree of the Soviet Union's Central Executive Committee on January 2, 1925.
The territory retained its autonomy throughout the Soviet Union and into the Central Asian state's independence, even after a ruinous five-year civil war that saw many of the region's people fight against the government in the ranks of the failed United Tajik Opposition (UTO).
Recent years have showed an increasing intolerance for the region's otherness on the part of the central government in Dushanbe, however.
Autonomy goes missing in TV weather forecasts
In the independence period, tensions between the region and the regime peaked in 2012, when a high-ranking security official close to the regime was assassinated by other government officers with pasts linked to the dissolved UTO.
The Tajik government's response was a disproportionate if clumsily executed show of force.
While people still dispute who “won” the standoff between government troops and local residents that claimed several dozen lives, it is certain the government control over the region is shaky at best.
On February 19, <PERSON>, a poet and deputy chairman of the Writers’ Union of Tajikistan addressed a letter on Facebook to <PERSON>, Chairman of the State Committee for Television and Radio protesting state media's references to GBAO simply as ‘Badakhshsan province’.
He argued the apparent policy “can lead to misunderstandings between Badakhshsanis, becoming a reason for the rise of artificial contradictions.”
“Neither the Chairman of the Radio and Television, nor anyone else has the right to ignore the Constitution of Tajikistan, in which the region is officially listed as ‘Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region’,” <PERSON> told RFE/RL's Tajik service, complaining weather forecasters and newsreaders in particular were systematically referring to the territory without its ‘autonomous’ designation.
Referendum fears dispelled…for now
On social networks GBAO locals reacted emotionally to the new tendency, with many fearing that the territory's status could could be threatened in a forthcoming constitutional referendum.
Badakhshan native <PERSON> launched a flash mob on Facebook, in which he called for a continuation of Badakhshan's autonomy.
Друзья бытует мнение , что в марте этого года планируется проведение референдума , в честь аннулирование статуса автономии БАДАХШАНА . 148