AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL REPORT 2016/17

General’s Office refused to comment on its
authenticity but its suspected source was
nevertheless prosecuted (see below).
In March the UN Special Rapporteur on
freedom of expression expressed concern
that “the drastic measures taken against
IRPT represent a serious setback for an open
political environment. The government
accuses the IRPT and its members of serious
crimes but it has refused to give public
access to the trial and evidence”. 1
Persecution of defence lawyers
Lawyers who worked on the case of the 14
IRPT leaders faced harassment, intimidation
and, in some cases, arbitrary detention and
prosecution. In October, the Dushanbe City
Court sentenced Buzurgmekhr Yorov and
Nuriddin Makhkamov, two lawyers
representing several co-defendants in the
IRPT case, to 23 and 21 years in prison
respectively following an unfair trial. Apart
from the first court hearing in May, all
sessions were closed to the media and the
public. Both lawyers were found guilty of
“arousing national, racial, local or religious
hostility”, fraud, “public calls for violent
change of the constitutional order of the
Republic of Tajikistan”, and “public calls for
undertaking extremist activities”.
Buzurgmekhr Yorov was also found guilty of
forgery. Both denied any wrongdoing and an
appeal was pending at the end of the year.
Neither will be able to practise law upon
release unless their convictions are fully
overturned. 2
On 22 August, Jamshed Yorov, also a
defence lawyer in the IRPT case and the
brother of Buzurgmekhr Yorov, was detained
on charges of “divulging state secrets”. He
was accused of leaking the text of the
Supreme Court’s decision in the IRPT case.
He was released on 30 September.
A second trial against Buzurgmekhr Yorov
opened on 12 December at pre-trial
detention centre number 1 in Dushanbe. He
was accused of disrespecting the court and
insulting government officials in his final
statement to Dushanbe City Court.
TORTURE AND OTHER ILL-TREATMENT
In May, legal safeguards against torture and
other ill-treatment of detainees were
strengthened. These included: reducing the
maximum length of time a person can be
held in detention without charge to three
days; defining detention as starting from the
moment of de facto deprivation of liberty;
giving detainees the right to confidential
access to a lawyer from the moment of
deprivation of liberty; and making medical
examinations of suspects obligatory prior to
placing them in temporary detention.
There were still no independent
mechanisms for the investigation of torture or
other ill-treatment. The NGO Coalition against
Torture registered 60 complaints of torture
but believed the real figure to be much
higher.
In September, the UN Human Rights
Council adopted the outcomes of the
Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of
Tajikistan. The government rejected
recommendations to ratify the Optional
Protocol to the Convention against Torture
and set up a National Preventive Mechanism.
It did, however, accept recommendations to
ratify the Second Optional Protocol to the
ICCPR and to fully abolish the death penalty.
FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION
The Ministry of Justice provided draft
regulations for the implementation of the
amended Law on Public Associations.
However, it failed to specify time limits for
decisions on the compulsory registration of
foreign funding for NGOs, or to clarify
whether a grant could be used before the
official registration. The draft regulations
limited inspections of NGOs to once every
two years, but left this rule and the grounds
for inspections open to wide interpretation.
In January a district court dismissed the
Tax Committee’s liquidation proceedings
against the established human rights and
democracy think tank, Nota Bene.
356 Amnesty International Report 2016/17