Skip to main content

Eurasianet

Main Menu

  • Regions
  • Topics
  • Media
  • About
  • Search
  • Newsletter
  • русский
  • Support us
X

Caucasus

Armenia
Azerbaijan
Georgia

Central Asia

Kazakhstan
Kyrgyzstan
Tajikistan
Turkmenistan
Uzbekistan

Conflict Zones

Abkhazia
Nagorno Karabakh
South Ossetia

Eastern Europe

Belarus
Moldova
Russia
The Baltics
Ukraine

Eurasian Fringe

Afghanistan
China
EU
Iran
Mongolia
Turkey
United Kingdom
United States
X

Environment

Economy

Politics

Kazakhstan's Bloody January 2022
Kyrgyzstan 2020 unrest

Security

Society

American diplomats in Central Asia
Arts and Culture
Coronavirus
Student spotlight
X

Visual Stories

Podcast
Video

Blogs

Tamada Tales
The Bug Pit

Podcasts

EurasiaChat
Expert Opinions
The Central Asianist
X
You can search using keywords to narrow down the list.
Tajikistan, Central Asia, EU

Tajikistan: Activist deported by Germany gets seven years in prison

Abdullo Shamsiddin’s supporters have said his apparent crime was to “like” a post on social media.

Mar 30, 2023
Abdullo Shamsiddin. (Photo:Azda.tv) Abdullo Shamsiddin. (Photo:Azda.tv)

A political activist who was deported to Tajikistan by Germany in January has been sentenced to seven years in prison on charges of sedition.

Abdullo Shamsiddin’s supporters have said his apparent crime was to “like” a post on social media. It is unclear what the content of the post was.

The trial was held behind closed doors and details of the case have been reported by Azda, an online news website linked to the exiled opposition.

Shamsiddin, 32, is the son of Shamsiddin Saidov, a leading figure within the Islamic Renaissance Party in Tajikistan, which was the only significant opposition force within the country until it was outlawed in 2015. He has lived in Germany since 2009, but ran into trouble, according to a report by RFE/RL’s Tajik service, when he failed to register with the German migration service. Shamsiddin was also reportedly denied asylum on three occasions.

Activists and rights group pleaded with the German authorities not to proceed with deportation. The expulsion nevertheless went ahead on January 18, when Shamsiddin called his wife from an airport to tell her that it was likely he was to be flown directly to Tajikistan.

Germany’s consent to hand over a political activist to a deeply authoritarian government has generated dismay among the rights community.

“There is serious and well-founded concern over his wellbeing in Tajikistan, a country with a terrible human rights record where opposition activists, human rights defenders, and journalists are jailed on politically motivated charges. Torture in prison is widespread,” Hugh Williamson, head of Human Rights Watch’s Europe and Central Asia Division, said in a statement.

The German Embassy in Dushanbe has not commented publicly on the case.

In a detail that illustrates well how Tajikistan’s justice system operates, Shamsiddin’s exact whereabouts were a mystery for around two months. Multiple officials insisted they had no information to share.

Only after a series of pickets mounted by Tajik opposition groups outside several of the country's embassies was Shamsiddin permitted, on March 7, to call his wife to inform her that he was being kept at a pre-trial detention facility of the State Committee for National Security, or GKNB, a successor agency to the KGB.

This is not the first time a Western European country has expelled Tajik activists to their home country. Amid vocal protests, Austria in 2020 deported 29-year-old Hizbullo Shovalizoda. Back in Tajikistan, Shovalizoda was sentenced to 20 years in prison for charges including extremism and treason.

Sign up for Eurasianet's free weekly newsletter. Support Eurasianet: Help keep our journalism open to all, and influenced by none.

Related

EurasiaChat: Intrigue in Central Asia's ruling palaces
Kyrgyzstan: MPs give president power to overturn court rulings on moral grounds
Uzbekistan: President demands swift investigation into huge Tashkent blast

Popular

Georgia wary of Russia bearing gifts
Giorgi Lomsadze
EurasiaChat: Intrigue in Central Asia's ruling palaces
Alisher Khamidov, Aigerim Toleukhanova, Peter Leonard, EurasiaChat
Armenia scrambles to accommodate uprooted Karabakhis
Fin DePencier, Katia Galati

Eurasianet

  • About
  • Team
  • Contribute
  • Republishing
  • Privacy Policy
  • Corrections
  • Contact
Eurasianet © 2023