The former security officer, who criticized the Chairman of the State Committee for National Security, was sent to jail for a period of 7 years.
Mamadsulton Mavlonazarov worked in the National Security agencies for 25 years. Prior to that, he worked in the youth newspaper “Komsomol Tochikiston” [“Member of the Komsomol of Tajikistan]. After his retirement, Mavlonazarov became an active user of social networks, often writing on topical issues under the nickname Muhammadi Sulton.
After the events of 2012, he began to criticize the actions of government forces and their decisions after the creation of the Interdepartmental Coordination Headquarters of law enforcement agencies and law enforcement agencies in GBAO. However, the authorities never reacted to the publications of the former colonel; they didn’t officially make a single refutation or mention of the messages of Muhammadi Sulton. But, as it turned out, the state security agencies opened an operational file against their former colleague, where they put everything that Mavlonazarov published. The last straw was Mavlonazarov’s criticism of last year’s November events in Khorog and the so-called counter-terrorist operation, which resulted in the death of at least 40 people.
Early in the morning of June 16, security forces knocked on the door to 72-year-old Mavlonazarov, dragged him straight out of bed, and without even letting him get dressed, they took him away in an unknown direction. Only three days later, Mavlonazarov’s relatives found him in the pre-trial detention center of the Internal Affairs Directorate in Dushanbe.
A criminal case was initiated against Mavlonazarov under the second part of Article 307 “Public calls for a violent change in the constitutional order of the Republic of Tajikistan”, using the mass media or the Internet, as well as under the second part of Article 330 “Insulting a representative of the authorities”, contained in a public speech, publicly displayed in the media or the Internet.
Mavlonazarov’s relatives, who managed to get a meeting with the accused, said that Mavlonazarov denied all accusations and declared that he was innocent. “He said that he considers himself innocent; everything he wrote on Facebook is true, and anyone can check it. He denies the accusation of publicly calling for a violent change in the constitutional order and says that he didn’t insult any of the authorities,” one of the people close to Mavlonazarov told reporters on anonymous terms.
At the end of August, the criminal case against Mavlonazarov was brought to court, and on September 13, the court of Sino district of the capital sentenced him to 7 years in prison.
As a former officer of the special service, Mavlonazarov will have to serve his term in a special colony located next to the State Traffic Inspectorate in Dushanbe.
