On July 31, a video was posted on the Behdosht TV YouTube channel in which Oraz and Ramzi Vazirbekov stated that they had voluntarily flown from Russia to Tajikistan and that “they are ready to answer all the questions of the investigation.”
Both “heroes” of the video are ethnic Pamiris and are known for their active statements against the policy of the Tajik authorities, and especially in relation to the actions carried out by the authorities in the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region.
Oraz Vazirbekov is a citizen of Russia and, according to the current constitution of this country, cannot be extradited to a foreign state. Experts believe that this video message was recorded precisely in order to hide the crimes of officials of the Russian Federation who contributed to the illegal extradition of the Vazirbekovs to Tajikistan.
Back in March, Oraz Vazirbekov said in an interview with Voice of America that his life was in danger. “I have been a citizen of the Russian Federation for more than 15 years. And the Tajik security forces are well aware of this. But every time they write petitions to their Russian colleagues with a request to detain and extradite me to Tajikistan. The Tajik special services present me to the Russian authorities as the ideologist of an organized criminal group of the Pamiris,” Vazirbekov said at the time.
Both Oraz and his younger brother Ramzi have previously published appeals that if they suddenly find themselves in Tajikistan, this means that they were “kidnapped by the special services of this country.”
A day earlier, on July 30, Pamir Daily News, a news agency that covers events related to Badakhshan and usually provides exclusive information about events in the region and people from GBAO, reported on its Telegram channel about the “disappearance” of two activists from the Pamir diaspora in Moscow. According to the author of the message, Oraz and Ramzi Vazirbekov “disappeared” from Domodedovo Airport on the night of 29 July. “Their flight from Yekaterinburg landed at Domodedovo at 19:30, which they informed their relatives about. After that, their telephone numbers became unavailable.”
Official authorities in Tajikistan did not circulate any comments on the video, although experts say that this video was filmed in the courtyard of one of the operational departments of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. In what state was Oraz, whose behavior during the shooting raises big questions, who recorded and published this video on the Internet, what the special services have to do with this incident, and who exactly is conducting the inquiry or investigation – all this raises many questions from experts.
Recall the incident with Sharofiddin Gadoev, who also said in the video that he himself returned to Tajikistan, but then international human rights NGOs accused Russia and Tajikistan of illegally detaining and forcibly returning this leader of the Tajik opposition to Dushanbe.
Oraz Vazirbekov says in Russian that he is a resident of Moscow, and this morning he voluntarily flew to Tajikistan, where he learned that “the investigating authorities have several questions for him in connection with the events in the city of Khorog.” A young man standing next to him introduced himself as Ramzi Vazirbekov and said in Tajik that he “confirms” his brother’s words and that they “are with the investigators and are ready to answer for their actions.”
Human rights activists claim that over the past six months, five natives of GBAO have been abducted from Russia and illegally brought to Tajikistan.
