Journalist and blogger Abdusattor Pirmukhammadzoda is accused of publicly calling for extremist activities, Shodi Hafizzoda, head of the Department for Combating Organized Crime of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Tajikistan, said at a press conference on July 19. He faces a prison sentence of 3 to 5 years.
Abdusattor Pirmukhammadzoda previously worked at the Sadoi Dushanbe radio station. But even after leaving work, he continued to be active on social networks, maintaining his blog. In November 2020, at the height of the novel coronavirus pandemic, a video of Pirmuhammadzoda protesting against unemployment, heavy fines, and the authorities’ indifference to the plight of people provoked a strong reaction from users in Tajikistan. He gained a lot of followers, but two months ago, Pirmuhammadzoda announced that he was stopping his blog, as pro-government officials called him a “traitor to the nation” in the comments on his video. But after journalists and bloggers, Daleri Imomali and Abdullo Gurbati were detained, Abdusattor Pirmuhammadzoda could not stand it and released several videos in support of the detained journalists.
On July 7, Abdusattor Pirmukhammadzoda was summoned to the department of the Organized Crime Control Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the city of Vahdat and was interrogated for several hours. They searched his house, confiscated his mobile phone, and took a receipt that he would not disclose the details of the interrogation to anyone.
After information about Pirmuhammadzoda appeared in a number of media on July 8, in the evening of the same day he was again summoned to the Organized Crime Control Department and no one saw Abdusattor again. On the same day, on the evening of July 8, another journalist and social media activist, Zavkibek Saidamini, was detained. Both spoke in social networks in support of the arrested colleagues Daleri Imomali and Abdullo Gurbati.
For exactly a week, the authorities did not report their whereabouts or voice the charges against them.
On July 14, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) also expressed concern about the fate of the bloggers, calling on Dushanbe to release information about the whereabouts of the detainees and immediately release them. “Keeping the whereabouts of the detained bloggers in the strictest confidence is unacceptable and is a blatant disregard for the country’s legislation,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator.
Only on July 15, a representative of the Prosecutor General’s Office, Sharif Kurbonzoda, said at a press conference that Zavkibek Saidamini was detained on suspicion of collaborating with the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan and the Group 24 banned in the country, he was charged with public calls for a violent overthrow of power.
