🏳️🌈 Are you from Tajikistan and being sought because you are LGBT?
The UK accepts this as grounds for asylum. You are not alone.
The UK immigration service knows this. Many from Tajikistan have already received refugee status here.
What to do right now:
«In 2017, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and General Prosecutor's Office registered 367 LGBTQ individuals (319 men and 48 women) as part of operations 'Purge' and 'Morality', officially justified as HIV prevention. Those on the list were subjected to outing, extortion, detention and beatings.»
«In May 2024, eight LGBT activists were arbitrarily detained, their phones copied, and contacts summoned for 'meetings'. Threats were made under Article 125 of the Criminal Code (HIV infection, up to 2 years).»
«The chief psychiatrist of Tajikistan publicly stated: 'we treat them with a guarantee' — state-sanctioned medicalisation of homosexuality.»
Open IPHR 2024 PDF →
No dedicated UK CPIN for Tajikistan
The UK Home Office publishes Country Policy and Information Notes (CPIN) for countries with higher volumes of asylum claims. For Tajikistan, no separate CPIN on SOGIE (Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity and Expression) exists.
This means decision-makers turn to international COI sources: reports from IPHR, HRW, ILGA-Europe, Outright International, ECOM and others — all listed below and freely available.
The 2017 MIA registry: 367 people
In October 2017, it became known that Tajikistan's Ministry of Internal Affairs and General Prosecutor's Office had created an official registry of LGBT+ citizens. According to RFE/RL and NBC News, the registry contained 319 men and 48 women — 367 people in total. The official justification was «medical monitoring and HIV prevention».
The real consequences for people on the registry: forced outing, detentions, beatings, blackmail. The existence of the registry is documented by multiple independent sources.
Article 125 as a pressure tool
Homosexuality in Tajikistan has not been formally criminalised since 1998. However, authorities use other tools: Article 347 of the Criminal Code «hooliganism» and Article 125 «HIV infection» (up to 2 years imprisonment) as mechanisms to target LGBT people.
Threats of Article 125 are particularly common: forced HIV tests were used as intimidation in the 2022–2024 raids.
Cross-references
To understand how the Home Office handles LGBT cases without a UK CPIN, see Evidence for LGBT asylum. For other countries — All countries.