Kazakhstan's president Kassym-Jomart Tokayev (in the center) sitting at the iftar hosted at Akorda. Photo from the official website of the President of Kazakhstan. Governments in Central Asia are not strangers to using religion for their own political gains. This behavior is particularly apparent during Ramadan, when Muslims fast from dusk till dawn. The Central Asian authorities have instrumentalized iftar, a ceremony of breaking the daily fast during that period. In 2023, presidents of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan hosted iftars. It allows political leaders to garner support by engaging with the public and positioning themselves as representatives of Muslim communities, who constitute the religious majority in these countries. People in Central Asia have come a long way in their understanding and practice of religion since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The Soviet authorities curtailed religious freedoms and viewed religion as a remnant of the past and a sign of backwardness subject to eradication. However, even the Soviet Union used religion for political means. In 1943, it established the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Central Asia to mobilize the local population for World War II by appealing to religious duties to protect their homeland. As Central Asian states became independent, their religious policies took divergent paths. The local context was crucial in this regard. The legacy of the civil war in Tajikistan, where religion was used for mobilization, and the operation of the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan as an opposition left little room for religious freedoms there. A similar situation unfolded in neighboring Uzbekistan, where the authorities grappled with the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, a homegrown terrorist organization through the 1990s. Kyrgyzstan, on the contrary, did not face such problems and allowed a much broader exercise of religious freedoms as part of its larger democratic reforms. Thus, public display and practice of religion became an important criteria for assessing the political situation, democracy and human rights in the region. In this context, the presidential iftars reflect diverging religious policies in each country. Uzbekistan’s president Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s participation in the iftar on March 30 was filled with symbolic meaning. First, it took place in Nukus, the capital city of the autonomous region of Karakalpakstan, which was engulfed in violent protests last summer. On July 1, Karakalpaks, an ethnic minority in Uzbekistan, took to the streets after proposed amendments to the constitution removed the clause on their right to self-determination by holding a referendum and seceding from the mainland. The protests lasted three days and left 21 people dead, including four military personnel. The constitutional referendum was postponed after the protests. The new draft of the constitution kept Karakalpakstan's right to secede, and the constitutional referendum will take place on April 30, 2023. Uzbekistan's president Shavkat Mirziyoyev with the local teacher from Nukus, who invited him for iftar. Photo from the official website of the President of Uzbeksitan. Second, the iftar took place at the home of a local teacher, Kuanishbay Seitnazarov, who invited Mirziyoyev to break his fast with his family. The fact that he is Karakalpak filled the iftar with another degree of symbolic meaning. This was the ultimate portrayal of mending relations after the violent protests last summer. Here is the YouTube video of Mirziyoyev taking part in iftar with a local family in Nukus. Third, Mirziyoyev’s participation in the iftar is symbolic of the reforms implemented under his rule. The president of Uzbekistan taking part in a televised religious ritual was hard to imagine under the previous president Islam Karimov, under whose rule all public displays of religiosity were banned. For example, the government prohibited wearing any items of clothing that would signify religious affiliation at government organizations and places of learning. Mirziyoyev has introduced political and social reforms — albeit lmited — in the sphere of religious freedoms that position him as starkly different from the previous regime. In 2023, Kazakhstan’s president Kassym-Jomart Tokayev carried on with the tradition he started last year and hosted “auzashar” (the Kazakh word for iftar) at Akorda, presidential palace in the capital Astana. The event was as formal as one could be, with very few signs of a religious ritual. Tokayev spent the large part of his speech on the political reforms carried out in the last year. He summarized them with the following words: “In general, a lot of work has been done in a short time.