In a unan­i­mous vote that will soon add their nation to a lengthy list of coun­tries around the world that have either halt­ed exe­cu­tions or aban­doned cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment alto­geth­er, the low­er house of Tajikistan’s Parliament has adopt­ed a mora­to­ri­um on the death penal­ty. Passage by the upper house and the sig­na­ture of the President are report­ed­ly assured. The Tajik mora­to­ri­um will leave Uzbekistan as the only repub­lic in Central Asia that con­tin­ues to car­ry out exe­cu­tions. Experts on Central Asia believe that pres­sure from lead­ers of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the European Union, which has the abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty as one of the main ele­ments of its for­eign pol­i­cy in rela­tions with third coun­tries, has facil­i­tat­ed much of the shift toward abo­li­tion in this region. ​“The move of Tajikistan is part of a wider trend with­in the OSCE region,” said Anna Crawford, a Warsaw-based human rights offi­cer for the OSCE. ​“Over the past years we’ve grad­u­al­ly seen the OSCE states intro­duc­ing mora­to­ri­ums and mov­ing to full abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty. There are 55 par­tic­i­pat­ing states in the OSCE region. And fol­low­ing this move of Tajikistan, there are now only three states that car­ry out exe­cu­tions in the OSCE region: Belarus, the United States of America, and Uzbekistan.” Last year, Tajikistan reduced the scope of its death penal­ty by lim­it­ing the num­ber of crimes pun­ish­able by death from 15 to five and revok­ing its use against women and minors. In April, Tajikistan’s President Imomali Rakhmonov called for a mora­to­ri­um to be put into place, not­ing through a rep­re­sen­ta­tive to par­lia­ment that courts in the nation are already abid­ing by a de fac­to mora­to­ri­um. (RFE/​RL News, June 3, 2004) See International Death Penalty.
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