AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL REPORT 2016/17

TAJIKISTAN
Republic of Tajikistan
Head of state: Emomali Rahmon
Head of government: Qokhir Rasulzoda
The space for peaceful dissent continued to
shrink drastically. The authorities invoked
national security concerns and the fight
against terrorism to justify increasingly
harsh restrictions on freedoms of expression
and association. Members of the banned
opposition Islamic Renaissance Party of
Tajikistan (IRPT) were sentenced to life and
long-term imprisonment on terrorism
charges in blatantly unfair secret trials.
Allegations that they were tortured to obtain
confessions were not effectively and
impartially investigated. Lawyers
representing IRPT members faced
harassment, arbitrary detention, prosecution
and long prison terms on politically
motivated charges.
BACKGROUND
In May a national referendum approved wideranging
amendments to the Constitution.
These included removing the limit on
presidential terms in office, effectively
enabling President Rahmon to retain the
presidency beyond the next elections, and
banning religion- and nationality-based
political parties. In November “insulting the
leader of the nation” was made a criminal
offence.
At least 170 individuals were prosecuted,
convicted and sentenced to prison for their
alleged involvement in the armed clashes
between government forces and armed
groups in the capital, Dushanbe, in
September 2015, which the authorities
described as an attempt to seize power by a
former deputy defence minister, Abdukhalim
Nazarzoda. Due to the authorities’ near-total
control of news reporting there was little
independent public scrutiny of the official
account which, in turn, cast doubt on the
prosecutions.
Exiled members of the banned opposition
party, Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan
(IRPT) and opposition “Group 24” activists
attended and picketed the annual Human
Dimension Implementation Meeting of the
OSCE in Warsaw, Poland, in September.
Some reported that police and security
services threatened, arbitrarily detained,
questioned and in some cases physically
assaulted their family members in Tajikistan
in retaliation for their peaceful protest in
Warsaw. The government delegation left the
event early in protest against a “terrorist
organisation banned in Tajikistan” being
admitted among other civil society
participants.
UNFAIR TRIALS
The authorities continued to emphatically
reject allegations of the politically motivated
criminal prosecution, unfair trial and torture
and other ill-treatment of 14 IRPT leaders for
their alleged role in the September 2015
clashes. The trial at the Supreme Court
began in February and was conducted in
secrecy, inside the pre-trial detention centre
of the State Committee for National Security.
In June, all the defendants were convicted.
Two deputy IRPT leaders, Umarali Khisainov
(also known as Saidumur Khusaini) and
Makhmadali Khaitov (Mukhammadalii Hait),
were given life sentences. Zarafo Khujaeva
(Rakhmoni) was sentenced to two years in
prison; she was released on 5 September
under a presidential pardon. Other sentences
ranged from 14 to 28 years.
The sparse initial official information
relating to the prosecution of the IRPT
leaders, including the charges they faced,
had already been removed from official
sources (including the Prosecutor General’s
Office website and the official news agency
Khovar) in 2015, and any further information
suppressed. The defence lawyers were
compelled to sign non-disclosure agreements
regarding all details of the case and the legal
proceedings. The verdict and official records
of the court proceedings were not officially
released. In August, a leaked copy of the
verdict was published online. The Prosecutor
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