society. At the same time, he repeatedly denied hard-liners' accusations that he sought the establishment of an Islamic government in Tajikistan. After the hard-liners' victory in the civil war at the end of 1992, Turajonzoda fled Dushanbe and was charged with treason. Ironically, however, after 1997 powershare between current administration and the former opposition groups, Turajonzoda has been appointed as a Deputy Prime Minister of Tajikistan, and unequivocally supports Emomalii Rahmon's regime. Muslims in Tajikistan also organized politically in the early 1990s. In 1990, as citizens in many parts of the Soviet Union were forming their own civic organizations, Muslims from various parts of the union organized the Islamic Rebirth Party. By the early 1990s, the growth of mass political involvement among Central Asian Muslims led all political parties—including the Communist Party of Tajikistan—to take into account the Muslim heritage of the vast majority of Tajikistan's inhabitants. Islam also played a key political role for the state in power in the early 1990s. The communist old guard evoked domestic and international fears that fundamentalist Muslims would destabilize the Tajikistani government when that message was expedient in fortifying the hard-liners' position against opposition forces in the civil war. However, the Nabiyev regime also was willing to represent itself as an ally of Iran's Islamic republic while depicting the Tajik opposition as unfaithful Muslims. Recent developments In October 2005, Tajikistan's Ministry of Education banned female students from wearing Islamic headscarves in secular schools. Wearing the hijab, or head scarf traditionally worn by Muslim women, and other religious symbols "is unacceptable in secular schools and violates the constitution and a new law on education," Education Minister Abdudjabor Rahmonov said. He expressed concern that pupils spent too much time in mosques at the expense of their education. "Many spend evenings in mosques and do not do their homework," Rahmonov said, adding that during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan many did not attend classes after Friday prayers. More recently, according to an unconfirmed report, the Tajik government has closed hundreds of unregistered Mosques drawing locals to believe that the crackdown is actually against the religion of Islam. According to reports, some Mosques have been destroyed while others have been converted into beauty parlors. Some have speculated that the crackdown is a result of governmental concerns of Mosques being "unsafe," or that the Imams may not act "responsible." Tajikistan marked 2009 as the year to