DUSHANBE, February 17, 2010, Asia-Plus — Dushanbe city court has sentenced 12 Hizb ut-Tahrir members to various terms in prison. Among them are two Uzbek nationals, one of leaders of Hizb ut-Tahrir in Sughd province and 11th grade school student from Dushanbe.
The Dushanbe city court sentenced 12 members of the outlawed extremist religious Hizb ut-Tahrir organization to various terms in prison on February 16. The sentence followed their conviction on the charges of incitement of national, racial, regional or religious enmity as well as calls for the forcible overthrow of or change to the constitutional order in Tajikistan, the source at the Dushanbe city court said.
According to him, they were detained in Dushanbe last autumn. “Among them is 11th grade school student from Dushanbe, Solehjon Jurayev,” said the source. “He was sentenced to three years in prison and he will serve his term in a juvenile prison.”
Besides, there are two Uzbek nationals – Ahmadullo Mengliyev and Abdumannon Yusupov – and one of leaders of Hizb ut-Tahrir in the Sughd province Azamat Vahhobov among those convicted. Mengliyev and Yusupov got jail terms of 13 and 10 years respectively, while Azamat Vahhobov, who has the previous conviction for membership of Hizb ut-Tahrir, was sentenced to 14 years in prison.
The remaining seven defendants were handed prison terms from between 3 and 13 years.
We will recall that the Khujand city court last month sentenced 10 Hizb ut-Tahrir members to long prison terms, ranging from 8 ½ to 15 ½ years.
According to the Ministry of Interior (MoI), 25 followers of the banned Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and 16 members of Hizb ut-Tahrir were arrested in the country in 2009.
