Tajikistan may well establish an independent national human rights organization with the backing of the OSCE and United Nations.

The deputy head of the OSCE Center in Dushanbe, Andrei Shugurov, said a Tajik national human rights institution could become an effective mechanism to remedy “weaknesses” in the justice system.

Weaknesses like… systematic and politically motivated persecution of the opposition? Not to be too cynical, but it seems that Tajikistan seems to be moving in two opposite directions at once – reform and repression – but the reforms have been largely soft (creation of plans, organizations and the like), and the backsliding all too real.