34 military recruitment officers implicated in wrongdoing during the autumn conscription campaign

Deputy Prime Minister, Azim Ibrohim, who is also the head of the republican conscription commission, held a meeting at the end of the last week to review the resulta of the autumn conscription campaign, an official within the Tajik government told Asia-Plus in an interview.     

Speaking at the meeting, the deputy prime minister reportedly noted that as a whole, the last year’s autumn conscription campaign was unsatisfactory.

The procedures and methods of recruitment of youth in the national army do not stand up to criticism, Azim Ibrohim said, according to the source. 

The deputy prime minister demanded an end to shameful practice of unlawful rounds ups and raids of conscripts, the source added.

Disciplinary and administrative action was reportedly imposed on thirty-four officers of the military registration and enlistment offices in the cities of Panjakent, Konibodom, Khujand, Hisor, Kulob, Istaravshan and Tursunzoda as well as districts of Vose, Hamadoni, Farkhor, Jaihun, Jomi, Qubodiyon, Varzob, Balkhi, Vakhsh, Nourobod and Dushanbe’s Sino, Firdavsi and Ismoili Somoni districts for delaying implementation of the conscription target.  

Chiefs of six military registration and enlistment offices in the Sughd province, Vahdat Township as well as Shugnan district in the Gorno Badakhshan Autonomous Region (GBAO) and Dushanbe’s Shohmansour district were sacked.   

The autumn conscription campaign is carried out in Tajikistan from October 1 through November, and the draft affects able-bodied male citizens in the age bracket of 18 years old to 27 years old who are not members of the armed forces reserve.

The two-month-long effort seeking to enlist young men aged 18-27 for the two-year compulsory military service takes place twice a year, in the spring and in the autumn.  According to the Ministry of Defense, every year, some 15,000-16,000 young Tajik men are drafted into the country’s armed forces. 

Some sources say more than 600,000 young men in Tajikistan are eligible for military service, but some 150,000 of them have received draft deferments or are exempted from the military service and some 100,000 other conscript-age young Tajiks are outside the country in search of a living.

Young Tajiks can avoid or postpone military service if they are ill, studying at university, an only son, or if they have two children.

Tajikistan’s armed forces consist of Ground Forces, Mobile Forces (paratroopers of the armed forces of Tajikistan), Air Force and Air Defense Force.