Asia-Plus: Arrest of journalist Daler Sharifov

On 4 February 2020 Asia-Plus published an explanatory article about the arrest of Tajik journalist Daler Sharifov (Далер Шарифов), who had been in custody for one week. The article reports that on 28 January 2020 the State Committee for National Security (GKNB) office in Dushanbe’s Shohmansur district summoned Sharifov for a “conversation”; on 29 January he was moved to the republican GKNB building, and on 30 January the Ismoili Somoni district court charged him under Article 189, part 1 of the Criminal Code of Tajikistan (“incitement of national, racial, local or religious enmity”) and remanded him for two months pending investigation. According to the article, the Prosecutor General’s Office stated on 1 February that between 2013 and 2019 Sharifov had published more than 200 articles and notes “of extremist content” and had in June 2019 printed an unauthorised book in a run of 100 copies; a religious expert examination cited by the prosecutors linked the text to the “Muslim Brotherhood” (Ихвон-ул-муслимин), a movement banned in Tajikistan in 2006. On 3 February the GKNB classified the case as “secret”. The article provides biographical detail: Sharifov was born 1 January 1988 in Vakhdat, studied at the Tajik National University (2006–2012), worked at state TV channel Safina and for the Ozodagon agency (2013–2016), and founded the youth movement “Kadam ba kadam”. Named persons: defence lawyer Abdurahmon Sharipov (Абдурахмон Шарипов), wife Saida Kurbonova (Саида Курбонова), cleric Domullo Muhammadi Kumsangiri, intellectuals Olim Gafurov, Abdurahmon Boboev, Bozor Sobir, and theologian Yusuf al-Qaradawi. Sources cited include the Prosecutor General’s Office, Radio Ozodi, and the Committee on Religious Affairs.