DUSHANBE -- Tajikistan's government has announced that all imams who received their religious training abroad will be removed from their positions as part of an effort aimed at preventing radicalisation.
"The Committee for Religious Affairs has initiated the dismissal of all imams at mosques who received religious education abroad," a member of the committee told AFP Friday (November 3).
The foreign-trained imams will be relieved from their posts in the next two weeks and immediately replaced by locally-trained clerics, he said.
Around 20 imams that "used their pulpits in mosques to commit crimes" have been convicted for "extremist religious activities," the committee member said. He did not specify where those imams received their religious training.
Tajikistan has only one institution where citizens can receive training to become imams.
