In Tajikistan, Oraz Vazirbekov, an activist of the Pamir diaspora in Russia, was sentenced to 16 years in prison. This is reported by the Tajik service of Radio Liberty. Oraz Vazirbekov and his brother Ramzi Vazirbekov lived in Moscow in recent years and criticized the Tajik authorities. At the end of July, the Tajik security services kidnapped the brothers at Moscow's Domodedovo airport and took them to Tajikistan.
On July 30, the Pamir Daily News portal wrote that the Vazirbekovs simply "disappeared" from the airport on the night of July 29. “Their flight from Yekaterinburg landed at Domodedovo at 19:30, which they informed their relatives about. After that, their numbers became unavailable, ”the message said.
Tajik authorities said the Vazirbekovs had voluntarily returned to the country to help the official investigation into the events leading up to the November protests. In confirmation of this, a story was shown on state television in which their “voluntary return” was staged. None of the state bodies commented on the extradition and detention of the Vazirbekovs.
A few months earlier, Oraz Vazirbekov had said that he was afraid of being kidnapped by special services. He and his brother Ramzi wrote down appeals saying that if they ended up in Tajikistan, it meant that they were "kidnapped by the special services of this country."
“I have been a citizen of the Russian Federation for over 15 years. The Tajik special services know this very well. Despite this, they write petitions to their Russian colleagues one after another. They want to present me before the Russian authorities as the ideologist of an organized criminal group of Pamirs,” Oraz said in an interview with Voice of America.
In Tajikistan, Oraz Vazirbekov was accused of extremism and calls to overthrow the constitutional government via the Internet. He was also accused of embezzling charitable funds that Badakhshan migrants sent to families who suffered during a special operation by Tajik security forces in Khorog in 2012.
Ramzi Vazirbekov is still in the pre-trial detention center of the State Committee for National Security.
In connection with the Vazirbekov case, Human Rights Watch has asked the government of Tajikistan to stop the illegal arrests and unfair trials of residents of the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region. “The Tajik authorities must put an end to this practice and adhere to their international agreements to ensure a fair trial,” the human rights activists said in the appeal.
According to Pamir Daily News, since the beginning of 2022, at least five natives of Tajikistan have been abducted from Russia and taken to Tajikistan. Among them is the influential Tajik activist Amriddin Alovatshoev. He disappeared in Russia in January of this year. Relatives could not find him for three weeks. Only in early February, the Tajik authorities announced that Alovatshoev was in a pre-trial detention center in Dushanbe, later he was sentenced to 18 years in prison.
In March 2021, the Tajik special services kidnapped in Moscow the head of the Moscow center "Tojikon" Izzat Amon, who for many years helped Tajik labor migrants solve legal problems in Russia. Relatives searched for him everywhere for a week. On March 27, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Tajikistan announced his deportation from Russia "for violating the rules of stay in this country and illegally obtaining Russian citizenship." There is no deportation mark in his passport, but his Russian citizenship has been revoked. After that, he was detained in Dushanbe and charged with fraud. Amon was sentenced to 9 years in prison.
From 2005 to 2018, according to human rights activists, at least 15 Tajik citizens living abroad, including in Russia, were “abducted or missing.” Most kidnappings are for political reasons.
