A/HRC/55/51/Add.2 37. Tajik officials have rightly pointed out the challenging geopolitical, security and economic contexts, including the situation in neighbouring Afghanistan, the war between the Russian Federation and Ukraine, past or present tensions with other countries, including Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, and the impact that they have had and continue to have on government policies and actions. Nevertheless, they, in themselves, do not relieve the Government of Tajikistan from complying with and implementing the human rights obligations that it has voluntarily agreed to undertake. 38. There is, in the end, an almost complete disconnect between the expressed international commitments and the engagement with global human rights procedures of the Government of Tajikistan and its actual practices on the ground and, at times, the severe repression of any actual or perceived threats to the authority of the Government. VI. Human rights of minorities in law and practice 39. While the Constitution and various laws of Tajikistan refer to minorities or to relevant rights in the areas of culture, language and religion, the reality on the ground is, overall, not positive. Religious minorities, in addition to members of the Sunni majority, face numerous and wide-ranging restrictions on the exercise of their beliefs and some groups, including Ismaili Shi’a, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Baha’is, can face additional difficulties linked to prevailing prejudices or suspicion from State authorities or the majority population. Several minorities, including the Mugat, Pamiri and Yaghnobi, are not recognized in the national census or taken into account in other disaggregated data by the State authorities. Minorities are also almost completely excluded from and invisible in political representation in the national Parliament and State institutions. For example, even though Uzbeks constitute about 12 per cent of the population, apparently not a single Uzbek has been elected to the Parliament. Data provided to the Special Rapporteur indicates that, as of January 2022, only 6 per cent of the country’s civil service comprised persons belonging to minorities, despite their constituting around 16 per cent of the population. While there are provisions for the use of minority languages in education, recent years have seen a growing Tajik nationalism emphasizing the acquisition of the Tajik language and the integration of minorities, leading to an assimilation that is not entirely voluntary. The pressure is quite significant, as minority languages are essentially excluded from being used for access to public services, with only Tajik provided for and, in practice, some use of Russian. 40. Overall, the situation of minorities in the exercise of their human rights, despite some favourable provisions and a slight relaxation of the regulation of religious groups, has not improved significantly. They are largely omitted from any attention in the new national human rights policies that are supposed to incorporate global human rights standards. The repression experienced after the violent events of 2021 and 2022, followed by the crackdown on civil society organizations, human rights defenders and journalists, means that minorities, particularly the Pamiri, are not only facing the significant denial of their human rights but also an absence of any effective means to remedy those violations at the national level. A. Religious minorities 41. In 2023, the Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief conducted a mission to Tajikistan at the invitation of the Government, with her final report to be presented to the Human Rights Council in March 2024. In her end-of-mission statement of 20 April 2023, she outlined the extensive and tight controls over religious practices that applied generally in the country but that, in some cases, had a significantly greater impact on certain minorities. 42. The above-mentioned sextet of legislation (the Law on regulating traditions, celebrations and rituals, the Law on public associations, the Law on freedom of conscience and religious association, the Law on parental responsibility, the Law on countering extremism of 2020 and the Law on combating terrorism of 2021) has resulted in the strict regulation of all religious activities, with some manifestations of religion completely banned and strict limits on numerous private activities connected to the manifestation of belief with other members of the same religious or belief community. The Government-appointed GE.24-00946 9