They said [to my brother], “We will find you and kill you."
We will find you and make you change your way of thinking.”
Tajikistan is in the midst of a very serious political crackdown.
Starting about 2 years ago, the Tajik government started tightening the screws on dissent
hunting its political opponents in and outside the country.
Since coming to power in ’92, President Rahmon and the people who surround him
have come to exercise complete control over Tajikistan.
Authorities have relentlessly pursued anyone perceived to be a government critic,
jailing hundreds of peaceful political activists.
Now even jailing leading human rights lawyers and other members of civil society.
Human Rights Watch, the Norwegian Helsinki committee and other human rights groups
have interviewed activists and other victims of this crackdown
in Turkey, Moldova, Russia, Belarus, Poland, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and of course, inside Tajikistan.
We’ve witnessed the Tajik authorities using trumped up, politically motivated charges
to silence peaceful political opposition activity.
In some cases, Dushanbe has even abused Interpol, the international criminal police organization
to manufacture false charges against activists in other countries.
I learned that they had me under surveillance, that they were following me
and that I was on the Interpol wanted list.
Shabnam Khudoydodova was an ordinary young woman, living in Russia like many Tajiks do
who criticized her government and for that, the Tajik government listed her on the Interpol database
essentially labeling her an international criminal, simply for criticizing the government.
This is a tactic that means that a person can be arrested
anytime they cross any international border which is what happened to Shabnam Khudoydodova.
When I arrived in the Republic of Poland, Poland did not accept me.
They wanted to extradite me.
In order to stop the extradition process, I requested political asylum in Belarus.
When they [authorities in Belarus] sent me to the temporary holding facility
Tajik law enforcement officers arrived.
They interrogated me, asked me what I wanted.
[They asked] why I was involved in politics.
They called me a terrorist. A terrorist, an extremist.
Shabnam was eventually released and hopefully now will be resettled to a safe third country.
Ehson Odinaev, my brother,
an activist and blogger for [opposition] Group 24, disappeared in St. Petersburg.
A week before he disappeared, he sent me a screenshot
showing that he was on the Interpol list.
After that, on May 19 at 6:53 pm, he left his building, went onto Kurskaya Street,
disappeared without a trace. And nobody could tell us anything
Of course, we had meetings with representatives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Tajikistan in Moscow.
They hinted that there’s a separate group
a special group that’s not the KGB, not the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
It’s a special group that was formed… not to liquidate exactly,
but to solve the problem of the opposition, as they said.
He hasn’t done anything. He disappeared for freedom, for truth.
He’s only 24 years old. He hadn’t seen anything good in life.
Other than suffering, he hasn’t seen anything.
In March 2015, the leader of an opposition movement known as Group 24
Umarali Kuvvatov was gunned down and killed in Istanbul.
After the murder of Kuvvatov,
there were anonymous phone calls and threats on my life in Istanbul
and I really felt the threat of the far-reaching Tajikistan special services.
I decided to fly to Moldova.
And when the term of my stay in Moldova was expiring, I wanted to leave Moldova, Chisinau
but I was arrested at the airport on August 11, 2015.
After that, I learned that the Tajikistan authorities were accusing me under Article 307, Section 1 and Section 2.
They were accusing me of extremism and supposedly fostering a community and group of that sort.
In September 2015, the government banned the most important opposition party
in the country, the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan, jailing hundreds of its members
and declaring the party a terrorist organization.
Under threats and torture, they [security forces] wanted me to resign from the party
and for me to condemn our party in front of their cameras, condemn the party leader
and they wanted me to say all of this in front of a television camera.
The Committee for National Security Staff from our Sughd region forced me to literally eat all of the material I published.
For more than six hours, they tried to force me to swallow all that paper.
Today I of my own wishes have left the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan.
This is my petition.
After torturing Ilhomjon to make a cone ession, the security services finally released him.
Later that night, he managed to escape to the airport where he fled Tajikistan for his life.
The rapidly growing list of political prisoners, the rampant torture, enforced disappearances,
the crackdown on all political dissent-
it all adds up to one thing, the need for targeted measures
against key government officials responsible for the current crisis in Tajikistan.
First the international committee must recognize that Tajikistan is in a completely new period.
This is a crackdown unlike any other
and there’s never been a more dangerous moment for human rights or for security in Tajikistan.
Secondly, the US, the European Union and all of Tajikistan’s international partners
including international financial institutions should be willing to impose meaningful consequences
for serious human rights abuses.