ICJ: Yorov wrongfully held for a decade

The report states that on 29 September 2025, the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), together with 11 other organisations including Amnesty International, CIVICUS, Civil Rights Defenders, Freedom Now, Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, Human Rights Watch, the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute, International Partnership for Human Rights, Lawyers for Lawyers, Norwegian Helsinki Committee, and Araminta, issued a joint statement stating that Tajikistan’s authorities have wrongfully imprisoned human rights lawyer Buzurgmehr Yorov for 10 years. The report states Yorov, aged 54, is serving a 23-year prison sentence because of his work representing political opposition leaders. The report states that in early September 2015, Yorov began representing members of the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan, which was banned and labelled a terrorist organisation in September 2015. The report states that on 28 September 2015, police arrested Yorov, raided his home and legal office without a warrant, and charged him with forgery, fraud, “arousing national, racial, local or religious hostility,” and extremism, following an interview in which he announced that one of the people he represented had been tortured in pre-trial detention. The report states Yorov was held for eight months in pre-trial detention, where he was beaten and placed in solitary confinement, and sentenced on 6 October 2016 after a trial with due process violations. The report states new trumped-up charges brought most recently in July 2023 have pushed his expected release date to September 2043. The report states the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention issued an opinion in May 2019 stating that his detention violated international law. The report states Yorov’s detention reflects a broader human rights crisis in Tajikistan under President Emomali Rahmon.