Tajik authorities see no need for religious party in country - presidential Center for Islamic Studies
DUSHANBE. Sept 12 (Interfax) - The Tajik authorities oppose the existence in the country of an Islamic party, the presidential Center for Islamic Studies said in a statement issued in connection with the creation in Warsaw of a coalition of four opposition parties after the collapse of the Party of Islamic Revival banned in Tajikistan.
"Now that the situation in the country is peaceful and calm and the country's socio-economic development is stable there is no need for the existence and work of a political religious party, and its natural disappearance seems quite legitimate," the center said in its statement.
"The remainders of the divided Party of Islamic Revival, who have formed so-called groups Organization of Free-Thinking Tajiks, Process of Reform and Development of Tajikistan, Association of Central Asian Migrants in the European Union and the like, are now trying to spread slanderous statements before the next annual meeting of the OSCE ODIHR in Warsaw. The division of the party into four groups can be regarded as long waited-for good news," the statement said.
"Such Islamic ideology now does not have any significance in the political context of Europe. It lost its force after the dissemination of Islamic radicalism and extremism in some countries of the Middle East and intensification of the activity of terrorist groups on the territory of the European Union," the center said.
"Various EU structures are flirting with such terrorist and extremist organizations, which present themselves as victim of the fight for justice and opposition," the center said in its statement.