DUSHANBE, May 7, 2014, Asia-Plus -- Prominent Tajik clerics, Hoji Akbar Turajonzoda and his brothers Eshoni Nouriddin and Eshoni Mahmoudjon, call on the Tajik authorities to stop the practice of “seeking enemies and creating images of enemies.”

In an open letter released on May 7, the Turajonzoda brothers note that they were forced to make such a statement after accusation of them of adherence to Salafism.

According to them, two young men who were allegedly fighting in Syria on the side of rebel forces were shown on Tajik national TV channels on May 2 and 3.

“The men said that they had studied at madrasah at our mosques and in 2008 they left for Syria, where they were fighting on the side of antigovernment forces.  Mostly Salafis are fighting against the government forces in Syria,” the letter said.

The Turajonzoda brothers also note that they do not know those two young men personally.

The Turajonzoda brothers call on power-wilding and ideological structures of Tajikistan to stop the practice of insulting and making pressure on their families, “because like other nationals of the country we are also full members of society and the Homeland.”

“We have never opposed our nation but sometimes we have had opinions different from opinions of some officials,” the letter stressed.

We will recall that in 2011, the Council of Ulema accused Hoji Turajonzoda and his brothers endangering the spiritual unity of the nation by performing the Shi’I ritual of Ashoura at their mosque near Dushanbe.  Although the brothers denied observing Ashoura, the Council of Ulema requested that all the country’s imams read its statement at Friday prayers; several imams who refused to do so were later dismissed.  The Council of Ulema also called on the government to examine if the Turajonzoda family’s religious activity was in line with the religion law.  Three days later, 50 police and officials raided the Turajonzoda mosque during Friday prayers, and detained nine worshippers without charges for 10 days.

The Committee on Religious Affairs (CRA) then downgraded the Turajonzoda mosque’s status for three months so that Friday sermons—which had drawn 10,000 worshippers—could not legally be held, and the government dismissed two brothers, Nouriddin and Mahmoudjon, as the mosque’s imams.  In May 2012, a court ruled that the Turajonzoda mosque must be closed.