being planned for 2010). The increase in the percentage of Tajik from 3.9% of the population in 1979 to 4.7% in 1989 may be attributed, at least in part, to the change in census instructions: in the 1989 census for the first the nationality could be reported not according to the passport, but freely self-declared on the basis of the respondent's ethnic self-identification. Languages According to the CIA factbook, the current language distribution is: Uzbek 74.3%, Russian 14.2%, Tajik 4.4% and Other 7.1%. The Latin script replaced Cyrillic in the mid-1990s. Following independence, Uzbek was made the official state language. President Islam Karimov, the radical nationalist group Birlik (Unity), and the Uzbek Popular Front promoted this change. These parties believed that Uzbek would stimulate nationalism and the change itself was part of the process of de-Russification, which was meant to deprive Russian language and culture of any recognition. Birlik held campaigns in the late 1980s to achieve this goal, with one event in 1989 culminating in 12,000 people in Tashkent calling for official recognition of Uzbek as the state language. In 1995, the government adopted the Law of the Republic of Uzbekistan on State Language, which mandates that Uzbek be used in all public spheres and official jobs. Scholars studying migration and ethnic minorities have since criticized the law as a source of discrimination toward minorities who do not speak Uzbek. Nevertheless, Russian remains the de facto language when it comes to science, inter-ethnic communication, business, and advertising. Multiple sources suggest that the Persian-speaking Tajik population of Uzbekistan may be as large as 10%-15% of the total population. The Tajik language is the dominant language spoken in the cities of Bukhara and Samarkand. The delineation of territory in 1924 and the process of “Uzbekisation” caused many Tajiks to identify as Uzbek. Thus there are many Tajiks who speak Tajik but are officially documented as Uzbek. Religion Muslims constitute 94% of the population according to a 2013 US State Department release. Approximately 3% of the population are Russian Orthodox Christians. There were 94,900 Jews in Uzbekistan in 1989 (about 0.5% of the population according to the 1989 census), but fewer than 5,000 remained in 2007. A study showed that more than 50% of surveyed consider religion as "very important". CIA World Factbook demographic statistics The following demographic statistics are from the CIA World Factbook as of September 2009, unless otherwise indicated.