Qishloq Ovozi (Archive)

On November 8, violence broke out at the Khujand prison in Tajikistan’s northern Sughd region.

Tajik authorities have been slow in revealing details about the prison riot but it now seems that dozens of people, mainly prisoners, were killed.

Adding to the confusion, the Islamic State militant group has claimed it had a role in the violence.

What happened at the Khujand prison and why?

RFE/RL's Media Relations Manager Muhammad Tahir moderated a discussion about the Khujand prison riot.

The participants in the discussion were:

• Helene Thibault, a political-science lecturer at Nazarbaev University in Kazakhstan, who previously conducted extensive fieldwork in Tajikistan.
• Irna Hofman, a rural sociologist at Lieden University in the Netherlands, who has also conducted fieldwork in Tajikistan.
• Edward Lemon, a fellow at the Daniel Morgan Graduate School of National Security in Washington D.C.
• Tohir Safarov from RFE/RL's Tajik Service.

Embed share

Majlis Podcast: What Caused The Khujand Prison Violence?

by RFE/RL

Embed share

The code has been copied to your clipboard.

The URL has been copied to your clipboard

---

No media source currently available

0:00 0:36:07 0:00

Direct link

• 64 kbps | MP3

Pop-out player

Listen to the podcast above or subscribe to the Majlis on iTunes.

Every year, some of the best and brightest in the field of Central Asia studies gather for the Central Eurasian Studies Society (CESS) conference. This year the University of Pittsburgh hosted the conference from October 24-28 and one of the people attending was RFE/RL's Media Relations Manager and Majlis podcast moderator Muhammad Tahir.

It was an excellent opportunity to try doing a Majlis podcast in front of an audience, who were given an opportunity to ask the panelists questions, and make comments themselves on how they view the evolving situation in Uzbekistan.

The topic was the changes in Uzbekistan: how believable are these changes and how far could they go?

Joining the talk was Jennifer Murtazashvili, associate professor and director of the International Development Program at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh; Navbahor Imamova, a journalist at RFE/RL’s sister organization Voice of America, where she works for the Uzbek Service and hosts the show called Amerika Ovozi, which can be seen on YouTube; and our longtime Majlis friend Luca Anceschi, professor of Central Asian Studies at Glasgow University. I was not at the CESS this year, but I joined the discussion via Skype.

Embed share

Majlis Podcast: Is Uzbekistan Reforming Under Its New President?

by RFE/RL

Embed share

The code has been copied to your clipboard.

The URL has been copied to your clipboard

---

No media source currently available

0:00 1:04:28 0:00

Direct link

• 48 kbps | MP3

Pop-out player

Listen to the podcast above or subscribe to the Majlis on iTunes.