Tajikistan

Tajikistan ranked 155th of 180 countries in the 2026 RSF World Press Freedom Index, with a score of 32.22. It fell two places from 153rd in 2025, despite its numerical score increasing marginally from 32.21. Reporters Without Borders says the country’s repressive trajectory continues to worsen, with increasing numbers of journalists choosing exile and those who remain resorting to self-censorship. It describes the government as closely monitoring radio, television and online content.

State Media Monitor maps three entries in Tajikistan. All are classified State-Controlled, and none sits in the independent family.

Tajik State Television and Radio is an analytical grouping for the state broadcasting system administered and coordinated by the Committee for Television and Radio under the Government. Its current mapped asset list comprises nine national and thematic television channels, five regional state channels and four national radio services. This is not an exhaustive count of state broadcasting nationally: in July 2026, the Committee reported that Tajikistan had 15 state television channels and ten state radio stations. The difference should be reconciled in the underlying broadcaster profile.

Tajik State Print Media is an analytical grouping for five national newspapers published by four state institutions. Khovar is the National Information Agency and the country’s central state information body, operating a news wire in five languages and the Radio FM Khovar service.

Two of the three entries are analytical groupings rather than single legal entities. The individual broadcasters and newspapers are separately constituted, and the entry names define State Media Monitor’s mapping scope rather than a common corporate structure.

A single pattern runs through all three: formal legal safeguards exist, but none is supported by structurally independent governance or an effective external enforcement mechanism.

Article 3 of Tajikistan’s Law on Television and Radio Broadcasting lists objectivity, reliability and free expression among the principles of broadcasting. Article 6 prohibits interference by public authorities and other actors in broadcasters’ creative activity, as well as state censorship and persecution for criticism.

Article 3 of the Law on Periodical Press and Other Mass Media, Law No. 961 of 19 March 2013, makes equivalent provision for print and other media and expressly includes information agencies within the law’s scope.

Against those provisions, Article 5.1 of the broadcasting law places state regulation and control in the hands of the Government acting through the Committee for Television and Radio. It authorises the Committee to monitor broadcast programmes, transmissions and information. State Media Monitor identified no independent governing body, protected appointment procedure or external enforcement mechanism at any of the three entries.

The institutional arrangements are unusually direct. The Committee is simultaneously the national broadcasting regulator, licensing and monitoring non-state stations, and the administrator of the state channels. Its July 2026 reporting said the state broadcasters directed their work towards coverage of government policy, the achievements of independence, strategic national objectives, national self-awareness and state values.

Each mapped state newspaper is directly attached to a public institution. Jumhuriyat is the official publication of the President and Government; its governing charter states that its editorial office is subordinate to both. Khalq Ovozi and Narodnaya Gazeta are publications of the Government, Sadoi Mardum is published by the Majlisi Oli, and Omuzgor by the Ministry of Education and Science.

Under its governing regulation, Khovar has the exclusive right to collect and distribute official information and documents concerning the activities of the President, the Majlisi Oli and the Government.

Senior appointments are made directly through government or presidential instruments. Nosir Ozod Saidzoda was appointed Chairman of the Committee by Government Resolution No. 51 of 21 January 2025. Subhiddin Shamsiddinzoda was appointed Director of Khovar by Government Resolution No. 28 of 19 January 2023. Qurbanali Rahmonzoda was appointed editor-in-chief of Jumhuriyat through a presidential personnel decision on 19 June 2015, while Mahbuba Kamolova was appointed editor-in-chief of Narodnaya Gazeta by government decree on 17 March 2017. Both remained identified in those roles in 2026.

The legal basis for public financing is clear, but its scale is not. Article 8 of the broadcasting law provides that state television and radio organisations are maintained from the state budget. Paragraph 4 of Khovar’s governing regulation establishes financing from the republican budget. Article 5 of the press law permits targeted state allocations, financial assistance and other forms of public support, although that general provision does not disclose the financing received by individual newspapers.

Local journalists and experts interviewed by State Media Monitor also described all three entries as state-funded. State Media Monitor could not identify an annual appropriation, published financial statements, audited accounts or a complete revenue breakdown for any of them.

Public financing is not necessarily exclusive. In January 2024, then Committee Chairman Nuriddin Said said that Television and Radio Tojikiston had earned TJS 4 million in advertising revenue. He added that advertisements were selected partly for conformity with national and state values. Khovar maintains a commercial department, and its radio enterprise has historically generated advertising income. The commercial income of the state newspapers and the proportion of commercial revenue across the three entries could not be established.

Independent journalism has meanwhile been severely curtailed. In April 2026, the Committee to Protect Journalists reported that nine journalists had received prison sentences of up to 20 years since 2022. CPJ said eight of the nine had been convicted on apparently baseless terrorism or extremism charges, that all nine trials were held behind closed doors and that most cases involved allegations of torture or ill-treatment. Separately, RSF described the number of heavy sentences as greater than in any other Central Asian country.

Rukhshona Khakimova, then a 31-year-old freelance journalist who had worked for Factcheck.tj and received a national investigative-journalism award in 2023, was sentenced by the Supreme Court on 5 February 2025 to eight years’ imprisonment for high treason.

The charge was reportedly connected to an unpublished survey on Chinese influence and foreign aid in Tajikistan. The questionnaire had been prepared for an independent research institute and used in several other Central Asian countries without legal consequences. Khakimova was tried in closed, classified proceedings alongside opposition politicians, including her uncle, in a case concerning an alleged plot to overthrow the government. No public record of the evidence against her was released.

On 13 February 2025, Supreme Court representatives responded to criticism of Khakimova’s imprisonment by saying that a deferred sentence was unavailable because high treason was classified as an especially grave offence. Her conviction was upheld on appeal on 2 April.

Ahmad Ibrohim, editor-in-chief of the independent regional newspaper Paik, was sentenced on 10 January 2025 to ten years on charges of bribery, extortion and extremism, which he denied. RSF called the proceedings a sham and described Paik as the last independent media outlet in Khatlon province.

An amnesty law signed by President Emomali Rahmon on 16 June 2026 led to the release of Zavqibek Saidamini and Abdusattor Pirmukhammadzoda on 18 July. Both had been serving seven-year sentences imposed in 2022 over alleged links to organisations designated extremist. They had spent approximately four years in detention.

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