A/HRC/55/51/Add.2 7. The mission’s overall purpose was to identify ways of improving the effective implementation of international obligations in relation to the human rights of minorities through a close review of existing legislation, policies and practices for the protection and promotion of the rights of minorities. III. General context 8. Tajikistan regained its independence on 9 September 1991 with the break-up of the Soviet Union, although it was torn and deeply scarred by civil war between May 1992 and June 1997. While the country’s economy has been growing slowly since the end of the civil war, Tajikistan remains one of the poorest countries in Central Asia. Sharing an extensive border with Afghanistan, it also is bordered by China, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. While Dushanbe has seen significant investment and growth in recent years, the outlying regions do not appear to share the relative prosperity of the capital. The main driver of the country’s economic growth has been remittances from labour migrants, mainly those working in the Russian Federation. Remittances have grown steadily since 2020 and accounted for an estimated 50 per cent of the gross domestic product in 2022, according to the World Bank. 9. Tajikistan, a presidential republic, is divided into three provinces. The regime is considered by most outside observers to be authoritarian, with a long-standing track record of very serious claims of human rights abuses. 10. The country’s brutal civil war and its shared border with Afghanistan have deeply affected the national psyche and continue to do so. Those effects, combined with concerns regarding the takeover of Afghanistan in 1996 by the Taliban, the rise of Islamic extremism starting in 2010 and the return of the Taliban to the helm of Afghanistan in 2021, have resulted in specific geopolitical concerns and responses. Those relatively recent traumatic episodes have made concerns over national unity and countering the risk of violent extremism almost an obsession for the State authorities and form the background for the large-scale limitations on the exercise of many human rights. IV. Ethnic, linguistic and religious minority communities 11. Tajiks form the majority ethnolinguistic population in the country, comprising over 86 per cent, according to the most recent official census, conducted in 2020. Their language is the country’s official language and is a Persian language closely related to and mutually intelligible with the Dari language of Afghanistan and the Farsi language of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Russian is considered the language of communication “between nationalities” under the Constitution and is still widely used in the country. Uzbeks comprise the largest linguistic minority, however, with more than 11 per cent of the population, according to the 2020 census.1 The second largest group are the Kyrgyz, who make up close to 0.4 per cent of the population. Speakers of several related Pamiri languages (Bartangi, Rushani, Sanglechi-Ishkashimi and Shughni), concentrated in the Kŭhistoni Badakhshon Autonomous Province, represent about 0.8 per cent of the total national population. 12. While recent statistics are unavailable, it is generally thought that Hanafi Muslims represent about 94 per cent of the population, with Ismaili Shi’a at between 3 and 4 per cent. Adherents of various Christian denominations, including Russian Orthodox, Baptists and Jehovah’s Witnesses, constitute some 1.8 per cent, followed by much smaller religious or belief groups, including Baha’i, Jewish, Zoroastrian, atheist and non-believer. 1 GE.24-00946 See https://unece.org/sites/default/files/2023-09/WS10RizoevENG.pdf. 3