To: Mr. Jean-Claude Juncker,
President of the European Commission
CC: Mr. Peter Burian,
EU Special Representative for Central Asia

Dear President Juncker,
Association of immigrants of Central Asia in the European Union states is very satisfied with the new programs for Central Asian countries that are adopted by the European Union. In these programs much attention is paid to improvement and fulfillment of democratic values. The EU in past had cooperation and relations with the countries of this region on conditions of fulfilling values and standards of democracy: freedom of speech; freedom of belief and religion; independently functioning of political parties, media, civil society institutions; organizing free and transparent elections; creating conditions for expressing political views.
Mr. Peter Burian, EU Special Representative for Central Asia, on September 19 completed an official trip to Tajikistan and got acquainted with the situation of human rights in that country. His conversations with journalists give us hope the EU, as a powerful institution, will continue to stress the importance of improving and fulfilling democratic values.
Meanwhile, the Association of immigrants of Central Asia in the EU states, as a human rights institution, believes the authoritarian government of Tajikistan has no respect to human rights and democratic values. Moreover, it systematically violates the decisions of the UN Human Rights Committee and does not comply with OSCE recommendations on issues related to the human dimension.
Tajikistan is the most corrupt country that is ruled by a dictator with communist background who keeps the political power for 27 years. Unfortunately, it is clear financial aids and investments of EU are not spent on improving democratic values and protecting human rights by the Tajik nepotistic government.
We believe that financial aids of the EU are stolen by the corrupt authorities of Tajikistan and are spent on strengthening the dictatorship regime.
Until now the EU has helped Tajikistan quite a lot. Especially after establishment of international anti-terrorist coalition in 2011 with the US leadership, the EU aids to Tajikistan increased.
However, a question is how much these aids did impact on improving democracy? Rather, year after year the dictatorship regime in Tajikistan has become more powerful. For retaining power, the regime gradually brought down the democratic values and standards.
Hence, the Association of immigrants of Central Asia in the EU states kindly asks you to stop all the aids and funds unless the Tajik authorities review and make significant changes in the following areas:
— freedom of speech;
— freedom of belief and religion;
— independent media;
— civil society institutions;
— independent political parties;
— organizing free and transparent elections;
— releasing political prisoners.
We sincerely believe the European taxpayers should be informed on financial funds providing to Tajikistan, there should be a mechanism of tracking those funds in that dictatorship country.
The Association of immigrants of Central Asia in the EU states is ready to cooperate so that to practice the suggestions abovementioned.

Sincerely yours,
Ilhomjon Yoqubov,

Head of the Association of immigrants
of Central Asia in the European Union states