DUSHANBE, January 18, 2012, Asia-Plus – Russia’s
Novaya Gazeta
(New Newspaper) says Tajik opposition journalist Dodojon Atovullo was in intensive care for four days after being attacked in central Moscow and stabbed with a knife two times by an unidentified attacker late on January 12 and he was transferred from the intensive care unit to a general ward only on Monday evening.
In an interview with
Novaya Gazeta
, Dodojon Atovulloyev has said that he is sure that the attack on him was contracted.
“On that day I had a number of meetings with foreign diplomats and I had one more appointment for evening,” said Atovulloyev. According to him, he went out of the house at around 9:00 pm and when he was passing through the archway he saw unknown man. “I understood that he is ethnic Tajik and I thought that he just wants to greet me but he stabbed me with a knife two times.”
“I have just relaxed my vigilance,” Atovulloyev noted.
The journalist has said that he is sure that the attack on him was contracted. According to him, there are many reasons for that. “Next year, there will be presidential elections in Tajikistan and the authorities are trying to neutralize the opposition,” said Atovulloyev. According to him, the spat between Russia and Tajikistan last November over the jailing of Russian and Estonian pilots in Tajikistan could also be one of the reasons.
The journalists says that after the attack he has been convinced once again of correctness of the chosen path. “I have no option. We will expand activity of my “Vatandor” movement and we will seek President Rahmon’s resignation in a peaceful way,” Atovulloyev said.
We will recall that a Moscow-based Tajik opposition journalist Dodojon Atovullo (Atovulloyev) was attacked near the Viaggio Italian Restaurant Thursday (January 12), between 9:00 and 10:00 pm. According to some media sources, an unknown man of Asian appearance attacked the journalist and inflicted two stab wounds on him. Dodojon Atovullo was rushed to the Sklifosovsky Emergency Medicine Institute in serious condition.
Dodojon Atovullo, 56, an exiled opposition journalist and outspoken critic of the Tajik government. He runs an independent Tajik-language publication
Charoghi Rouz
.
Atovulloyev was forced to leave Tajikistan in 2001 after being accused of insulting the president and “inciting national, racial, and religious hatred.”
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reported in 2008 that according to Tajik press reports, “the Interior Ministry issued an arrest warrant in September for Dodojon Atovullo… and the Prosecutor-General’s instituted criminal proceedings against Atovullo on the charges of “public calls to a violent change in the constitutional regime,” along with defamation and “public insult of the president.”
In 2011, Tajikistan’s Prosecutor’s General again instituted criminal proceedings against Atovullo and sent an extradition request to the Russian authorities but the Russian authorities refused the extradition request.
