CPJ: Bokizoda Nerui Sukhan theft charges

Published by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) on 25 August 2005 (posted 29 August 2005), this legal-action alert reports that a judge in Dushanbe convicted Mukhtor Bokizoda, editor of the shuttered opposition weekly Nerui Sukhan (“Power of the Word”), on theft charges. The document reports that Bokizoda was sentenced to two years of “corrective” labour, fined 1,500 Tajik somoni (US$500), and ordered to forfeit 20 percent of his monthly wages. The report states that Bokizoda, who is also chairman of the Foundation for the Memory and Protection of Journalists, told CPJ he would appeal. The article finds that the charges dated to late February 2005, when tax authorities accused him of stealing electricity for the foundation’s printing house, which printed Nerui Sukhan. Nuriddin Karshiboyev, head of the National Association of Independent Media of Tajikistan (NANSMIT), told CPJ the case was fabricated and should have been brought under the administrative rather than criminal code. The document reports that authorities had shut down Nerui Sukhan four times since its 2003 founding through politicised tax and regulatory inspections; the paper had reported on government corruption. The report states that tax police shut the printing house in January 2005 for alleged licence violations, that publication briefly resumed on 7 July 2005 before being shuttered again a week later, and that some observers connected the actions to the 2006 presidential elections.