The Interior Ministry of Tajikistan reports the arrest of six activists of the outlawed Islamic Revival Party of Tajikistan (IRPT) in Europe. They have reportedly already been brought to Dushanbe to face terrorism charges.
“Tajikistan has put 2,528 people suspected of committing grave crimes in the country on the international wanted list. 1,873 of them are suspected of membership in terrorist and extremist organizations. Thirty-five of them are members of the outlawed Islamic revival Party of Tajikistan,” the chief of the Interpol National Central Bureau (NCB) for Tajikistan, Major-General Abdughaffor Azizov, told the state-run newspaper Jumhuriyat in an interview.
According to him, the wanted members of the IRPT are suspected of not only terrorism and extremism but also of committing a number of murders, robberies, violations, hostage-taking and trafficking in drugs and weapons.
“Members of the Islamic revival Party have committee 1,610 crimes in Tajikistan,” the general stressed.
Azizov noted that under cooperation with countries participating in the Interpol system six internationally wanted activists of the IRPT had been brought to Dushanbe from Europe.
He further added that a member of the IRPT’s political council, Shohnaim Karim — also known as Mirzorahim Kuzov — was detained at the Athens airport last month while boarding a flight to Tehran. “Currently, the issue of extraditing him to Dushanbe is being discussed,” Azizov noted.
Recall, IRPT spokesman Mahmoudjon Fayzrahmonov told Radio Liberty’s Tajik Service on October 11 that Shohnaim Karim was detained at the Athens airport late on October 9 while en route from Warsaw to Tehran after attending a conference organized by the OSCE.
He cited Greek authorities as saying that Karim was detained at the request of Interpol.
Tajik authorities branded the IPRT a terrorist group and banned it in 2015, claiming it organized an armed mutiny along with former Defense Minister Abdulhalim Nazarzoda in September of that year an attempt to seize power. Nazarzoda and several supporters were killed by Tajik security forces.
Tajikistan’s Supreme Court ruled that the IRP should be included on a blacklist of extremist and terrorist organizations.
The verdict handed down on September 29, 2015 forces the closure of the IRPT’s official newspaper Najot (Salvation) and bans the distribution of any video, audio, or printed materials related to the party’s activities.
More than 12 leading IRPT members and lawyers for the party were convicted of involvement in organizing the mutiny and sentenced to lengthy prison terms in 2016. IRPT members and the party leader Muhiddin Kabiri, who now lives in exile, reject the accusations.
Founded in October 1990, the Islamic Revival Party of Tajikistan is the only Islamic party officially registered in former Soviet Central Asia. The IRP was registered on December 4, 1991. It was banned by the Supreme Court in June 1993 and legalized in August 1999.
Since 1999, the party had reportedly been the second-largest party in Tajikistan after the ruling People’s Democratic Party of Tajikistan.
Once the only registered Islamic political party in any of the five Central Asia’s nations, the IRPT was represented in the Tajik parliament for 15 years. In the 2005 and 2010 parliamentary elections, the IRPT won two out of 63 seats in the parliament, but the party suffered a crushing defeat in Tajikistan’s March 1, 2015 vote, failing to clear the 5 percent threshold needed to win parliament seats.
