DUSHANBE, July 18, 2014, Asia-Plus — A lawyer for detained Tajik researcher Alexander Sodiqov says his client has been allowed to see his mother for the first time since his arrest last month, Radio Liberty’s Tajik Service reported on July 17.
Abdulqayum Yusufi told RFE/RL on July 17 that Sodiqov and his mother had met in the detention center of the State Committee for National Security (SCNS) in Dushanbe on July 15.
Yusufi added that he and Sodiqov”s second lawyer, Hasan Kavrakov, had met with their client on July 16. Sodiqov again reiterated his innocence, Yusufi said, and had no complaints about the conditions of his detention.
Sodiqov, 31, a Tajik national residing in Canada, was detained in Khorog, the capital of the Gorno Badakhshan Autonomous Region (GBAO) on June 16, shortly after speaking with civil society activists there.
He was later charged with high treason and spying.
Sodiqov said he had been touring Central Asia as part of his doctoral research at Britain’s University of Exeter and the University of Toronto.
