Authorities
in Tajikistan routinely retaliate against family members of peaceful abroad-based
activists, the Association for Human Rights in Central Asia and the Norwegian Helsinki Committee said in a statement today. Since late November and onwards,
authorities have harassed, threatened and interrogated family members of
Fatkhuddin Saidmukhidinov, a Tajik opposition activist based in Europe, the
groups said.
Fatkhuddin
Saidmukhidinov told the Norwegian Helsinki Committee that, starting on November
26, the government agency to fight organized crime and the Tajik security
forces have subjected his 77-year-old father Minozh Saidmukhidinov, and his
brothers to repeated interrogations, both in the Kabadiyanskoy region, where
the family lives, and in Dushanbe, the country’s capital to where they have
been summoned by the security forces.
During the
interrogations the police claimed that Saidmukhidinov and his 23-year-old
daughter, with whom he lives in Europe, are terrorists, traitors and enemies of
the people. The interrogators showed them a picture allegedly showing
Saidmukhudinov stepping on a portrait of Tajikistan’s president Emomali Rahmon
and told his family members that he would need to return to Tajikistan to
answer for this crime. The interrogators then threatened Saidmukhidinov’s
father that unless his son would return voluntarily to Tajikistan to “face
justice”, the authorities would have him forcefully returned.
“Alarmingly,
this case is not unique in Tajikistan. For years, the authorities have held its
citizens in an iron grip, allowing zero dissent and cracking down brutally on
any and all criticism. Shockingly, persecution of family members remains an
often-used tool by the regime in its efforts to exert total control over
society”, said Nadejda Atayeva, President of the Association for Human Rights
in Central Asia. “Dushanbe must immediately cease this campaign of collective
punishment”.
On December
9, Saidmukhidinov appealed to international organizations, human rights groups
and civil society activists on social media, describing in detail the
persecution of his family members in Tajikistan. Saidmukhidinov told the
Norwegian Helsinki Committee that after he made his appeal on social media,
authorities increased the pressure on his family members. Following his public
appeal, the security services again summoned his father to be interrogated in
Dushanbe, the country’s capital, on December 14 and 16.
In the
statement, the Association for Human Rights in Central Asia and the Norwegian
Helsinki Committee said they have documented a pattern in which Tajik
authorities in recent years regularly harass, intimidate, interrogate and otherwise
persecute family members of outspoken abroad-based activists, in what appear to
be efforts to silence critics in Europe and elsewhere.
The groups
also stated that Tajikistan finds itself amid a grave human rights crisis in which authorities have
imprisoned hundreds of peaceful opposition activists, outlawed the opposition, cracked down on civil society and
eliminated all space for freedom of expression and independent media, while
subjecting peaceful citizens to torture, enforced disappearances, kidnappings and extra-judicial executions.
“During the
ongoing human rights crisis in Tajikistan, authorities have eradicated freedom of
expression at home – now they are posing a threat to the same freedom in Europe
as activists living in European countries are threatened to silence by
persecution of their loved ones back in Tajikistan. And yet, this is merely the
most recent manifestation of a systemic rights crisis threatening to
destabilize the country,” said Marius Fossum, the Norwegian Helsinki Committee
Regional Representative in Central Asia. “On 9 December 2019, the European
Union unanimously agreed to establish a worldwide Magnitsky-style sanction
regime. We call on Brussels to swiftly establish such a regime and apply sanctions against key
Tajik government officials responsible for the abounding gross human rights
violations taking place in recent years, including persecution of activists’’
family members.”
