In a statement released on October 12, Amnesty International (AI) expresses concern that criminal prosecution of human rights lawyers Buzurgmehr Yorov and Nouriddin Mahkamov has been politically motivated.
AI urges the Tajik authorities to ensure that the cases against Buzurgmehr Yorov and Nouriddin Mahkamov are reviewed in line with Tajikistan’s human rights obligations, and that international fair trial standards are fully upheld when their appeal is heard.
The international human rights organization also calls on the Tajik authorities to ensure that all lawyers in Tajikistan are able to perform their professional duties without intimidation, hindrance, harassment or improper interference in accordance with the UN Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers.
The UN Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers state that: “governments shall ensure that lawyers … are able to perform all of their professional functions without intimidation, hindrance, harassment or improper interference” (principle 16), “lawyers shall not be identified with their clients or their clients' causes as a result of discharging their functions” (principle 18) and “governments shall recognize and respect that all communications and consultations between lawyers and their clients within their professional relationship are confidential” (principle 22).
Recall that the Dushanbe city court sentenced Buzurgmehr Yorov and Nouriddin Mahkamov to 23 and 21 years in prison respectively on October 6. They will serve their terms in a high-security penal colony.
The sentence followed their conviction on charges of inciting regional and religious enmity (Article 189 of Tajikistan’s Penal Code), public calls for the forcible overthrow of or change to the constitutional order in Tajikistan (Article 307), public calls for carrying out extremist activity (Article 307’), and fraud (Article 247). Buzurgmehr Yorov was also charged with document forgery (Article 340).
The lawyers are barred from practice for five years.
The court's ruling was nearly identical to the prosecution's earlier demand for a 25-year prison term for Buzurgmehr Yorov and a 21-year prison term for Nouriddin Mahkamov.
Yorov and Mahkamov pleaded not guilty and called their trial politically motivated.
Buzurgmehr Yorov, formerly head of the law firm Sipar, was arrested on September 29, 2015 and Nouriddin Mahkamov, who also worked for the Sipar law firm, was arrested in late October 2015 after he sought to represent Yorov.
At the time of his arrest, Yorov had just begun to represent 13 members of the Islamic Revival Party of Tajikistan (IRPT), whom authorities arrested on various charges on September 16. In an interview with a journalist published the day he was arrested, Yorov said that one client, Umarali Hisaynov, a deputy party leader, told him that officers from the Police Unit for Combating Organized Crime had beaten him following his arrest.
The attorneys’ case moved to a court on April 5 and it has been classified as “secret.” The trial began on May 5.
International human rights groups say Yorov was arrested in retaliation for representing 13 members of the opposition Islamic Revival Party of Tajikistan. The government banned the party in August last year and declared it a terrorist organization on September 29, 2015.
In a statement released on October 7, 2015, six international human rights groups urged the Tajik authorities to release or present credible and internationally recognizable charges against Buzurgmehr Yorov and Nouriddin Mahkamov.
Meanwhile, Jamshed Yorov, Buzurgmehr Yorov’s brother and also one of the defense lawyers in the case against IRPT members (he was representing the IRPT deputy leader Mahmadali Hayit), was detained on August 22 on charges of “divulging state secrets” (Article 311 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Tajikistan). He was accused of leaking the text of the Supreme Court’s decision in the case against the senior IRPT members which had been classified as a secret document. On August 26, a court in Dushanbe’s Firdavsi district ordered his remand in pretrial detention. On August 30, Jamshed Yorov was amnestied and released from detention.
