The authorities continue to turn the screws, cleaning up objectionable journalists
Over the past month in Tajikistan, Radio Ozodi’s correspondent Mulloradjab Yusufzoda was beaten by unknown persons. Phones and video equipment were confiscated from this radio’s correspondents: Barot Yusufi, Anushervon Aripov, Nasim Isamov. The phone and laptop of Asia-Plus correspondent Ramziya Mirzobekova were seized. Independent journalist and blogger Daler Imomali was beaten and then jailed.
On June 18, by decision of the court of Shohmansur district of the capital, the journalist and blogger Abdullo Gurbati was taken into custody.
As Abdurahmon Sharipov, the journalist’s lawyer, told his relatives, Gurbati was given an order for preliminary arrest for a period of two months. The police department and the Prosecutor’s Office of Shohmansur district accuse Gurbati of allegedly beating a police officer.
Gurbati is a co-author and cameraman of a number of reports by Daleri Imomali, and he was summoned to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Shohmansur district for interrogation in the case of illegal business activities against Daler Imomali.
But after he left the investigator’s office and went to the checkpoint of the police department, a police officer blocked his way. “I had no thoughts and intentions to conflict with the police officers. They let me go. I wanted to get out, but at the checkpoint an officer of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Shohmansur district blocked my way. Then I was detained and returned to the building of the department. Now they are accusing me of beating a policeman,” the lawyer told to journalists the words of Abdullo Gurbati.
Gurbati, together with Daler Imomali, was detained, and their relatives were told that they were placed in the temporary detention facility of the Internal Affairs Directorate of Dushanbe. The journalists’ relatives were not given permission to meet with the detainees, and it was only through the lawyer that they were told that the hearing of their trial would take place in the building of the pre-trial detention center.
However, on June 18, when relatives and journalists gathered near the pre-trial detention center, several tinted cars drove out of the detention center, and at high speed, drove past the people waiting for the court. But when the journalists and relatives went to the court building, the detainee’s lawyer told them that the trial of Abdullo Gurbati would be held in a temporary detention facility.
The trial of Gurbati lasted up to 20 hours, behind closed doors. According to the lawyer, in court Abdullo Gurbati once again denied the accusations against him. However, the investigators told the judge that they had some information against the journalist, after which the judge ruled that Gurbati should be placed under preliminary arrest for a period of two months. Against him, the Prosecutor’s Office of Shohmansur district, at the request of an employee of the Internal Affairs Department of this district, initiated a criminal case under Article 328, part 1 (“Use of violence against a representative of authority”) of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Tajikistan. For this act, the Criminal Code of the Republic of Tajikistan provides for punishment in the form of a fine or imprisonment for up to two years.
