Amnesty International Report 2003 - Tajikistan

Covering events from January - December 2002

REPUBLIC OF TAJIKISTAN
Head of state: Imomali Rakhmonov
Head of government: Akil Akilov
Death penalty: retentionist
International Criminal Court: ratified

Death sentences and executions continued. Families of death-row prisoners were deprived of vital information about their loved ones. Tajikistan forcibly returned refugees to countries where they were at risk of serious human rights violations.

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Background

Members of the opposition Islamic Rebirth Party of Tajikistan reportedly faced harassment; several Islamic clerics were dismissed and a number of mosques were closed in the northern Soghd region. These developments emerged following President Imomali Rakhmonov's speech in July warning of "religious extremism" in the region. Numerous law enforcement officials were demoted or dismissed, and some were prosecuted, in what appeared to be a politically motivated purge in the cities of Soghd and Khatlon. Arrests of alleged members of the Islamist party Hizb-ut-Tahrir continued.

Death penalty

At least 50 death sentences were handed down. At least 28 people were executed and six death sentences were commuted. The Tajik authorities continued to treat the death penalty as a state secret and comprehensive official information on the numbers of sentences passed and executions carried out was not available.

Since the beginning of 2001 the UN Human Rights Committee has requested that the Tajik authorities suspend the executions of 12 prisoners. By the end of 2002, five of the 12 had been executed.

Opponents of the government during the civil war of 1992 to 1997 continued to be arrested and sentenced to death following proceedings that failed to meet international standards. There were continuing reports that people detained in Dushanbe Investigation Prison for investigation in relation to crimes carrying the death penalty were tortured by members of the Sixth Directorate of the Interior Ministry. Allegations included beatings, rape with truncheons and other objects, and electro-shock to the ears, fingernails and anus.

In all cases that came to AI's attention, death-row prisoners were executed in secret. Their families did not know the date of execution in advance. As a result, the families were subjected to a form of mental cruelty that may amount to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment prohibited under international law. The government failed to reply to AI's repeated proposals to conduct a joint seminar on the death penalty in Tajikistan.

• The brothers Dovud and Sherali Nazriyev were executed in June, in violation of a request issued in January by the UN Human Rights Committee to put their executions on hold for six months. The men had been convicted in May 2001 of attempting to murder the Mayor of Dushanbe with a car bomb in February 2000. According to reports the two did not have regular access to legal counsel and were tortured to force them to confess. When Dovud Nazriyev's wife went to visit her husband in June she discovered that both men had been moved five days earlier from the central prison in Dushanbe to a destination in the southern town of Qurgontoppa, where most known executions have taken place. She was officially informed six weeks after their execution that the two men had been shot on 21 June.

Refugees

Tajikistan continued to forcibly return persons to countries where they were at risk of serious human rights violations.

• Iskandar Khudoberganov was handed over to the Uzbek authorities in February. Following his forcible return to Uzbekistan, he was reportedly tortured at the offices of the National Security Service in Tashkent. He was allegedly kicked, beaten, deprived of food and sleep and threatened that his female relatives would be raped, in order to force him to sign a "confession". He was sentenced to death at the end of November following a grossly unfair trial (see Uzbekistan entry).

Afghan refugees in Tajikistan continued to face harassment and detention by the authorities.
The repatriation of Afghan refugees from within Tajikistan began in April. On 15 September the Tajik authorities detained and forcibly returned nine Afghan refugees – among them reportedly a 17-year-old boy – to Afghanistan. On 16 November another five Afghans were forcibly returned despite assurances by the Tajik authorities in September that they would refrain from further deportations. By the end of the year some 800 Afghans had reportedly been repatriated despite continued insecurity in Afghanistan.

AI country visit

An AI delegate visited Tajikistan in late May/early June.