A/HRC/55/47/Add.1 the Ismaili Education Centre (opened in 2018) in Khorugh, the regional capital; and that, while the two main Ismaili centres in Tajikistan – in Khorog and in Dushanbe – were open, they could be used only for prayers, as officials had banned educational and cultural activities. No official reason had been given for the closures or notification of how long they would last. However, the State Committee for Religious Affairs and Regulation of Traditions, Ceremonies and Rituals had announced that a group of experts would decide on that. At a meeting held on 14 January 2023 in Khorugh, government officials reportedly told village elders not to allow Ismaili prayers in homes or those found guilty would be fined. Officials had also insisted that local people should remove portraits of the Aga Khan from their homes and that young Ismailis would no longer be allowed to travel to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to study at the Institute of Ismaili Studies. The Special Rapporteur notes that the situation described amounts to collective punishment of the Ismailis. 76. Upon receipt of the special permission required, the Special Rapporteur’s delegation left for Kŭhistoni Badakhshon Autonomous Province and stayed there from 15 to 18 April 2023. As the Special Rapporteur’s visit request had clearly indicated her strong interest in visiting that Province, she very much regrets that the authorities did not facilitate official meetings and she was thus unable to meet the authorities there. While her delegation reached out to a range of religious and belief communities and faith-based actors in the Province, it was met with widespread reluctance to speak for fear of reprisals. As noted above (paras. 74 and 75), the Special Rapporteur had concerns about information on the situation in the Province that had been cross-checked and strongly confirmed through direct observation on the ground. 77. According to tens of sources, the State Committee for National Security had invited the heads of some 128 local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to a meeting in Kŭhistoni Badakhshon Autonomous Province in spring 2023 and persuaded or forced them to “voluntarily self-liquidate”. More than 30 of those NGOs, even those working with children, suspended their activities, and more than 10 NGOs self-liquidated under the pressure exerted. According to the Government, almost 500 NGOs had been liquidated as at 2022. Some 108 were liquidated by court decision and 364 “self-liquidated”. More than half the NGOs are reportedly from Kŭhistoni Badakhshon Autonomous Province and new organizations in that Province are currently prohibited from registering. The Special Rapporteur expresses her serious concern about the situation there. She notes that the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, following its review of the situation in Tajikistan in April 2023, had similar concerns.29 G. Conscientious objectors to military service 78. The Military Duty and Military Service Act provides for mandatory military service with no exemption for conscientious objectors. Conscripts must either serve two years in the armed services or pay a substantial fine and take a month-long course in military preparedness. 79. The Jehovah’s Witnesses organization was banned in 2007 and its registration withdrawn, due in large part to the refusal of its followers to perform military service. The organization challenged this decision in court, and on 29 September 2008, Dushanbe Military Court concluded that the ban was justified because: (a) individual Jehovah’s Witnesses requested the provision of a civil service as an alternative to military service; (2) Jehovah’s Witnesses were distributing religious literature in public places, in houses and on the streets that “had the nature of inciting fanaticism and extremism”; and (c) the activities of Jehovah’s Witnesses “may become a cause for fanning religious and denominational antagonism”. This decision was affirmed by the Military Division of the Supreme Court on 12 February 2009. 80. In its Views adopted on 7 July 2022, the Human Rights Committee found that none of the reasons put forward by the State party’s authorities and courts for banning the Religious Association of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Dushanbe and for refusing its reregistration 29 GE.24-00093 CERD/C/TJK/CO/12-13, paras. 13 and 14. See also paras. 35 and 36. 15