Tajikistan: Guilty by Association

Saodat Qodirova has been in jail in the Tajik capital Dushanbe for over a month, without being charged. The reason? No one knows for sure, but many believe she was arrested because she had the temerity to write to the authorities about her husband and two brothers, convicted as Islamic radicals.

Qodirova’s case is especially worrying because it suggests the government is widening the net in its battle against the banned Islamic organisation Hizb-ut-Tahrir by targeting the relatives of the movement’s supporters.

Qodirova, 30, made a meagre living as a seamstress in the village of Shodien, on the outskirts of Dushanbe. Three years ago her husband and two brothers were arrested along with about 17 others when police swooped on the village to root out suspected Hizb-ut-Tahrir members. She wrote in March to Tajik president Imomali Rahmonov asking him to reduce their sentences reduced and transfer them from a prison in northern Tajikistan to one in the capital, where it would be much easier for her to visit them.

The president’s office passed the letter to the relevant agencies – the chief prosecutor’s office and Tajikistan’s supreme court. As a result, relatives say, Qodirova was arrested. Her ten-year-old son was also taken into custody but released the next day.

Neighbours say Qodirova was not involved in religious activism.

“They set Saodat up,” said one. “She never did anything like that, but for some reason, the day she was arrested two women went to her and begged her to give them lessons from the Koran. They didn't have time to go inside with their religious literature before the security services arrived.”

Qodirova’s two sisters and their elderly mother Saidinisso also fear imminent arrest. The latter was held for 15 days last December when a group of women from Shodien tried to deliver a letter asking for their jailed male relatives to be transferred from the north to Dushanbe.

In Qodirova’s case, it took her relatives a week to find out that she was being held in a police detention unit. And it was another three weeks before the authorities would admit that she was being held, after the local office of Radio Liberty and IWPR took the case up.

IWPR has learnt that Qodirova has not been formally charged – in apparent contravention of legislation on how detainees should be treated.

In addition, relatives say she has yet to see a lawyer, another legal right. The prosecution service claimed she had been assigned legal counsel when she was taken into custody, but when pressed they refused to give the defence lawyer’s name. The official lawyers’ body which covers Qodirova’s village says they have not been approached by the authorities to take her case on.

IWPR has learned that the secrecy surrounding detained suspects believed to be linked to the banned Islamic group is official policy. A senior police officer involved in Qodirova’s case told IWPR, “At the beginning of this year we received a secret order from the government not to release details of the detention of Hizb-ut-Tahrir members – all the case files are stamped ‘Secret’.”

Tajikistan banned Hizb-ut-Tahrir in 2001 and has jailed more than 120 people to date, convicting them of membership and preaching its message. The group has a radical agenda – replacing current governments with Islamic rule – but it says it does not advocate violence, and most people are arrested for disseminating leaflets and posters.

In Central Asia, Hizb-ut-Tahrir first appeared in Uzbekistan in the mid-Nineties, and most of its hostility is directed towards that country’s government, which has in turn arrested thousands of suspected members. The group spread to Tajikistan through Sogd, a northern region adjacent to Uzbekistan. Initially most recruits were ethnic Uzbeks, and the pattern of arrests bears this out, whith most taking place in Sogd, Tursunzade and other areas with substantial Uzbek communities. The people arrested in the 2001 police raid on Qodirova’s village Shodien were also Uzbeks.

But it is premature to say that the group’s recruits are restricted to one group. In February and March this year, 35 suspected activists arrested in the southern region of Kulyab were all ethnic Tajiks.

The secrecy surrounding detention of suspects can only increase fears that they will suffer mistreatment at the hands of police. Physical abuse and torture are frequently reported as a means of extracting confessions in Tajikistan.

Tursun Kabirov, an independent political analyst, believes that the tough approach taken by the authorities may be counterproductive.

"The excesses carried out by the authorities, and infringements of the rights of Hizb-ut-Tahrir members and their families create resentment among the general public. This creates fertile ground for cells of this illegal organisation to develop in Tajikistan,” he warned.

Zafar Abdullaev is director of the Avesta news agency in Tajikistan.

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