Tajik bill bans minors from entering mosques

Tajikistan's authoritarian leader has approved a law barring minors from praying in mosques as his secular government seeks to minimize the rising influence of Islam in the Central Asian nation.

President Emomali Rakhmon signed the bill Wednesday despite vocal resistance from rights activists and the opposition Islamic Revival Party.

The law also requires people under the age of 18 to study in secular schools thus barring thousands of students from attending mosque schools seen by authorities as a breeding ground of Islamism.

The impoverished and predominantly Sunni Muslim nation shares a long and porous border with Afghanistan.

The country was ravaged in the 1990s by a civil war between government forces and a loose alliance of Islamists and democrats.

Top official dies suspiciously

A top government official in the Central Asian nation of Tajikistan unexpectedly died Wednesday during a visit to an electric plant construction site, a government source said.

Vice Premier Asadullo Gulomov, 56, died Wednesday morning during his inspection of the construction of the hydroelectric plant Sangtuda-2, 140 kilometres (87 miles) southwest of capital Dushanbe.

He was rushed to a government hospital in Dushanbe where doctors said he died of a stroke, government sources told AFP.

Gulomov was one of the closest allies of Tajik President Emomali Rahmon and was in charge of energy projects in energy-hungry Tajikistan.

He was inspecting Sangtuda-2, a hydroelectric plant project co-financed by Iran, due to be finished in September.

In the past, it was reported that Gumolov was seriously ill, but the reports were never confirmed.

Tajikistan, the poorest of the ex-Soviet republics of Central Asia, is looking for ways to solve its chronic energy shortages.

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