DUSHANBE, March 29, 2015, Asia-Plus – A 3.5-page text of a Friday sermon for March 27, signed by a certain A.V. Mavlonov, urges Tajik Muslims to support the closure of the Islamic Revival Party of Tajikistan (IRP), the only officially registered Islamic party in CIS Central Asia.

Imam-khatibs at Friday mosques noted during the Friday sermon on March 27 that the people of Tajikistan made the right choice voting for the People’s Democratic Party (PDP).

“The people did not vote for the Islamic Revival Party or other parties, which just give airy promises.  The people realized everything themselves.  The Islamic Revival Party’s defeat in the parliamentary elections indicates that nobody supports it except for its several supporters,” the sermon says.

Radio Liberty’s Tajik Service reports that at the central mosque in Dushanbe, Tajikistan''s Deputy Mufti Domullo Saidakbar called on believers to dissolve the party through a referendum.

Saidakbar reportedly said that Tajiks are Muslims historically and culturally, not through membership in political groups.

We will recall that the Islamic Revival Party failed to win even a single seat in the Majlisi Namoyandagon (Tajikistan’s lower house of parliament) in the March 1 elections.

Meanwhile, the IRP activists say the party’s image was blackened by state-run media reports ahead of the poll that linked the party to extremist groups in the Middle East, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.