Tajikistan: The authorities took the blogger’s mother hostage and demand his return to the country

Tajik blogger Sherzod Mamadjonov, known on social media as Abdurahmon 09, claims that the authorities of Tajikistan have announced conditions for his mother’s release from custody.

“They wrote on their fake Facebook and YouTube pages that they would release my mother on the condition that I return to Tajikistan and repent that I criticized the authorities for restricting religious freedoms,” he told reporters on March 2.

It’s worth recalling that the blogger lives and studies in Germany. He actively criticized the authorities of Tajikistan for their persecution of women in Muslim headdresses, as well as for men wearing beards.

The authorities repeatedly summoned his relatives and demanded that they force Sherzod by any means to return to Dushanbe and repent to the authorities. They claimed that he would then allegedly be amnestied.

In January, police officers took away the phone from the blogger’s mother, Shokhida Mamadjonova, without drawing up any protocols. On February 2, they told her to come and take her phone. On February 3, she went to the police station in the city of Vakhdat and never returned.

At first, the authorities replied that they didn’t know anything about the whereabouts of the detainee, but five days later, on the evening of February 8, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Tajikistan issued a statement that Shokhida Mamadjonova was taken under pre-trial detention.

The Civil Society Coalition against Torture and Impunity in Tajikistan, which has hired a lawyer to defend Shokhida Mamadjonova, said that the lawyer had already met with her several times in the pre-trial detention center. However, the relatives of Shokhida Mamadjonova claim that they have never been allowed to meet with the detainee officially.

“Despite the promises of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, we haven’t seen her yet,” said Idimo Mamadjonova, Shokhida’s mother. Earlier, the Ministry of Internal Affairs claimed that the rights of the arrested woman were respected and she was given the opportunity to see relatives. “We can only send homemade food to her in the pre-trial detention,” says Idimo.

The relatives of Shokhida Mamadjonova were informed that she was suspected of collaborating with Group 24 – the movement which is banned in the country. The main evidence of the guilt of 45-year-old Shokhida Mamadjonova is her Facebook page, on which she allegedly posted propaganda materials from Group 24.

“Seizure of the detainee’s phone is a gross violation of the Code of Criminal Procedure,” says the human rights activist, who, on condition of anonymity, agreed to comment on the situation with the detention and arrest of Shokhida Mamadjonova. “The investigator had to draw up a protocol of seizure, and in the presence of attesting witnesses, pack and seal the phone up. Then the investigator had to appoint an examination and seizure of the contents of the phone, but this wasn’t done at all. Apparently, the mother of the detainee was right. She said that for three months her daughter’s mobile phone was with the police officers of Vakhdat and they could phone to anyone and put likes under the objectionable posts.”