DUSHANBE, January 24, 2014, Asia-Plus – Khuajnd authorities have reportedly sealed the Islamic Revival Party (IRP)’s office in the city.
Ilhomjon Yoqubov, the head of IRP’s organization for Sughd, says they were going to hold a press conference regarding the death of the IRP member Umedjon Tojiyev Thursday afternoon (January 23) with participation of IRP deputy head Saidumar Husaini as well as the defense lawyer and relatives of Umedjon Tojiyev, when representatives of local authorities, including representatives of local sanitary and epidemiological station, fire department and committee on religious affairs, disrupted the press conference and sealed the office.
“They justified their decision to seal the office by saying that it allegedly does not comply with some sanitary and fire safety requirements,” Yoqubov noted.
We will recall that Umedjon Tojiyev died on January 19 more than two months after falling from the third floor of the Isfara police station.
Umedjon Tojiyev jumped from a third-floor window on November 2 and broke both his legs. He was officially being charged with organizing a criminal group. Tojiyev was initially arrested on October 30 for refusing to follow police instructions.
Tojiyev was reportedly transferred from an investigative center in the northern city of Isfara to a prison hospital in the city of Khujand on January 4.
Prison physicians say that Tojiyev died of thrombotic embolism but his relatives say he may have died after being tortured while in custody.
According to a statement released by Amnesty International (AI), Umedjon Tojiyev, 34-year-old agricultural worker and member of the opposition Islamic Revival Party, was arrested on October 30 at a market in Sughd province. “He was not allowed to see a defense lawyer until November 13, 2013. His family claimed that he had been tortured and ill-treated while in detention. Reportedly, between October 30 and November 2 several officers put a plastic bag over his head, denied him sleep, food and water, and used electric shocks through wet fabric in order to avoid leaving traces of torture. In desperation, Umedjon Tojiyev jumped out of the third floor window of the police station in Sughd province, breaking both his legs. One lawyer, who saw him subsequently, stated that Umedjon Tojiyev was carried into the meeting room as he could not walk, he was shaking and crying and he said he was forced to incriminate himself under duress,” the statement said.
