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17 Feb 09 11:32 |
A former Soviet republic, Tajikistan plunged into civil war almost as soon as it became independent from the Soviet Union in 1991.
A rugged, mountainous country, with lush valleys to the south and north, it now faces the challenge of strengthening peace and reviving its ruined economy.
Nearly half of Tajikistan's population is under 14 years of age. Tajiks are the largest ethnic group, with Uzbeks making up a quarter of the population, over half of which is employed in agriculture and just one-fifth in industry.
The Tajik language is very close to Persian, spoken in Iran, and to Dari, spoken in Afghanistan.
The five-year civil war between the Moscow-backed government and the Islamist-led opposition, in which up to 50,000 people were killed and over one-tenth of the population fled the country, ended in 1997 with a United Nations-brokered peace agreement.
Tajikistan has been accused by its neighbours of tolerating the presence of training camps for Islamist rebels on its territory, an accusation which it has strongly denied.
The republic has relied heavily on Russian assistance to counter continuing security problems and cope with the dire economic situation. Russian forces guarded sections of the border with Afghanistan until mid-2005 when their withdrawal was completed and the task handed over to Tajik border guards.
Skirmishes with drug smugglers crossing illegally from Afghanistan occur regularly, as Tajikistan is the first stop on the drugs route from there to Russia and the West.
In October 2004 Russia formally opened a military base in Dushanbe where several thousand troops will be stationed. It also took back control over a former Soviet space monitoring centre at Nurek. These developments were widely seen as a sign of Russia's wish to counter increased US influence in Central Asia.
President: Emomali Sharipovich Rakhmon (Rakhmonov)
Emomali Rakhmon, a former cotton farm boss, was elected chairman of the Supreme Council of Tajikistan in 1992 after the country's first post-Soviet leader, Rahmon Nabiyev, was forced to resign.
He was elected president in 1994 and re-elected in 1999 when his term was extended to seven years.
In 2006 he won a third term in office in an election which international observers said was neither free nor fair. Opposition parties boycotted the vote, dismissing it as a Soviet-style staged attempt at democracy.
Mr Rakhmon was instrumental in the pro-Communist effort to remove Islamist rebels from Dushanbe in the early 1990s. He led troops from southern Kulob District and supported the intervention of forces from other former Soviet republics. After years of civil war and violence, some stability returned to Tajikistan.
The president is not known for tolerating dissent. His People's Democratic Party holds virtually all seats in parliament. Western observers said the 2005 legislative elections had failed to meet international standards.
Mr Rakhmon does retain substantial public support. Tajikistan is still very poor, but many people are thankful they no longer have to face the civil war of the 1990s which killed tens of thousands and caused more than 10% of the population to flee the country.
Mr Rakhmon was born in 1952. His surname was Rakhmonov until 2007 when he ordered his countrymen to drop Russian-style surnames, in a break with the nation's Soviet past. He removed the Russian suffix "-ov" from his surname, saying this made him sound more Tajik.
Broadcasting is dominated by state-run radio and TV. More than 30 local and regional private TV stations are on the air, most of them entertainment-based.
There are more than 200 registered papers, some of them government-owned and others linked to political movements.
A few private radio stations operate alongside state-run radio. Dushanbe's first private station opened in September 2002, after a four-year wait for its licence.
Media rights organisations report that, although provided for in the constitution, press freedom is not widely respected in Tajikistan.
Reporters Without Borders notes that independent journalists come under great pressure from the authorities, who also control printing plants and determine the editorial line of the state-owned media.
There were around 19,500 internet users by 2007 (ITU figure).
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