A lawyer hired by the Civil Society Coalition against Torture and Impunity in Tajikistan in the case of Amriddin Alovatshoev, leader of the Badakhshan youth in Moscow, forcibly returned from Russia, is denied access to his client. Relatives are concerned that Amriddin may be subjected to torture.
“A lawyer hired by the Coalition, on February 8, 2022, in order to determine the whereabouts of his client Alovatshoev A., sent inquiries to the pre-trial detention center of the State Committee for National Security, the pre-trial detention center and the temporary detention center of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Tajikistan, where Alovatshoev supposedly could be. None of these institutions has confirmed that Alovatshoev is with them,” the Coalition against Torture said in its statement.
On February 14, the lawyer sent applications to the presidential executive office, the Prosecutor General’s Office, the Ombudsman, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs about not allowing the lawyer to see his client. “As of February 17, the lawyer doesn’t have information about the whereabouts of Alovatshoev, the charges brought against him and the body conducting the preliminary investigation,” writes the Coalition.
Amriddin Alovatshoev was detained on the territory of the Russian Federation and forcibly returned to Tajikistan, presumably on January 12, 2022. Only on February 2, the country’s authorities officially confirmed this fact. At the press conference that day, Tajik Prosecutor General Yusuf Rahmon confirmed that Alovatshoev had been extradited from Russia at the request of the authorities of Tajikistan in connection with a criminal case against him. However, no additional information was provided. On the same day, during the press conference, Shodi Hafizzoda, head of the Department for Combating Organized Crime under the Ministry of Internal Affairs, said that a criminal case had been opened against Alovatshoev for taking a hostage and a number of other crimes. The head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Ramazon Rakhimzoda, answering a question about the fate of Alovatshoev, noted that “he voluntarily returned to his homeland” and he was immediately detained at the airport on charges of organizing protests in Khorog in 2018.
According to Alovatshoev’s relatives, unidentified people pursued Amriddin after he actively participated in Moscow in November 2021 in a protest rally with people from Gorno-Badakhshan near the Embassy of Tajikistan demanding that those responsible for the murder of their countryman Gulbiddin Ziyobekov in GBAO be held accountable. Relatives say that Amriddin suffered precisely because of his active civic stand.
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