The National Bank of Tajikistan has denied information about dismissal of employees for possessing dual citizenship as ‘unfounded’. 

Tajik central bank states that no one employee of the bank has been fired for possessing dual citizenship. 

Meanwhile, several dismissed employees of bank have confirmed that they were forced to “voluntarily” leave the bank because they refused to renounce their Russian citizenship.  

“No one employee of the bank has been fried or voluntarily left the bank because of dual citizenship,” an official source at Tajik central bank told Asia-Plus in an interview.  He also denied information that the bank employees have been checked up for possessing dual citizenship as ‘baseless’. 

Recall, EurasiaNet.org reported yesterday the National Bank of Tajikistan (NBT) has fired 30 employees for possessing dual citizenship.

Farazh news website cited unnamed sources as saying the National Bank had previously set out requirements to staff with second passports to either give up their other citizenship or quit.

Russia is the only country with which Tajikistan has a dual citizenship treaty.  Under the dual citizenship agreement reached between Tajikistan and Russia in 1996 “each nation recognizes its citizens’ entitlement to obtain citizenship of a second country without being required to relinquish their original citizenship.”

Social network users have noted that the NBT employees are checked up for possessing dual citizenship.  According to them, the bank employees who refused to renounce their Russian citizenship have been fired.  

There were speculations that such check-ups have been conducted in all government bodies and even in private banks.  

Several former employees of the National Bank of Tajikistan told Asia-Plus that 30 employees of the bank who had voluntarily informed of possessing Russian citizenship had been left without job.  “The majority of them left the bank voluntarily because they feared to be fired.  Several people who refused to write applications for voluntary withdrawal and refused to renounce their Russian citizenship were dismissed under Article 48 of Tajikistan’s Labor Code,” the former employees said.  

The effort to ban dual citizenship for employees of government bodies has been in motion since 2014.  In December that year, parliament adopted a law enforcing that rule on the diplomatic corps. The same rule is in place for employees of security bodies.   On November 2, 2016, Tajik lawmakers approved amendments that ban individuals with dual citizenship from serving in the country’s security services. On June 6 this year, Tajik lawmakers began considering a proposal to extend the rule to the police.

Proponents of this rule argue that it is being brought in to protect national interests. 

In April, parliament adopted legislation envisioning fines of between 1,000 somoni ($117) and 1,500 somoni for state employees failing to declare a second citizenship.  

RFE/RL’s Tajik Service estimates that anywhere between 300,000 and 500,000 Tajiks have received Russian citizenship over the past two decades.