Topic summary
1990 Dushanbe riots
The 1990 Dushanbe riots marked a period of heightened civil disobedience and inter-ethnic violence in Dushanbe, the capital city of the Tajik SSR of the Soviet Union. Existing tensions over lacking economic and political reforms were exacerbated by the arrival of Armenian refugees from the Azerbaijan SSR due to the First Nagorno-Karabakh War. The mass movement of Tajik nationalists (e.g., the Rastokhez), anti-communists, and Islamists targeted ethnic minorities, such as Armenians, Russians, Jews, as well as unaffiliated Tajiks—namely women who did not conform to Islamic clothing standards. By late 1991, the dissolution of the Soviet Union gave way to the Republic of Tajikistan declaring independence, though this was followed by the Tajikistani Civil War less than a year later.