Kazakhstan cracks down against Islamists including Tablighi Jamaat preachers

Kazakhstan, the largest Central Asian nation, has launched a crackdown against Islamists and put in place measures to prevent people praying on roads blocking traffic, according to people familiar with the matter.

Police in Almaty recently dealt sternly with a prayer congregation that had created obstacles for traffic including for ambulances, they said, adding that the Kazakh administration is introducing strict measures to prevent blocking of roads that impacts normal flow of traffic and emergency services.

Simultaneously, the country is acting tough against Tablighi Jamaat preachers. Recently the authorities cracked down in the western part of the country against preachers of the Islamic proselytising movement who were using mosques to spread their ideology. Tablighi Jamaat is banned across Central Asia.


Over the past decade, Pakistan’s Tablighi Jamaat has made attempts to carry out its activities in Central Asia. It has allegedly made inroads into Kazakhstan’s neighbour Kyrgyzstan (Almaty is located close to the Kyrgyz border) as well as Russia. The group is also banned in Iran and Russia.

Pakistan’s Tablighi Jamaat shares many common features with Hizb ut-Tahrir, which is banned across Central Asia and Russia and wants to establish a caliphate in Central Asia.

ET had earlier reported that Pakistan’s Tablighi Jamaat, in connivance with Afghanistan-trained radicals, may have been behind the January 2022 terrorist attacks in Kazakhstan which led to vandalism of important installations and buildings in Almaty and loss of lives across the oil-rich nation.