DUSHANBE, May 20, 2016, Asia-Plus — A 21-year-old Davron Qurbonov has got a long jail term for hanging the black flag of the Islamic State (IS) militant group from abridge in Dushanbe’s neighborhood 103.
Radio Liberty’s Tajik Service reports that a court in Dushanbe’s Sino district sentenced Davron Qurbonov, who is a student of the Tajik Technical University, to six years in prison on May 19.
The sentence reportedly followed his conviction on charges of public calls for the forcible overthrow of or change to the constitutional order in Tajikistan (Article 307 of Tajikistan’s Penal Code).
His accomplice – a 17-year-old Qudrat Nasrulloyev – was sentenced to four years in prison.
The trial of Davron Qurbonov began on April 11.
According to the Sino district prosecutor’s office, Davron Qurbonov and his fellow student Hasan Sohibov were detained on November 28, 2015 on suspicion of hanging the IS flag from the bridge in Dushanbe’s neighborhood 103.
Sohibov was reportedly released in a week while criminal proceedings were instituted against Qurbonov on the basis of witnesses’ testimonies.
We will recall that 13 residents of the city of Norak were jailed in February this year for raising the IS group””s flag in a public place. A court in Norak found them guilty of publicly calling for extremist activities to overthrow the government and organizing a criminal group and the men were sentenced to prison terms between 10 and 27 years. The youngest in the group is 21, the oldest 74.
The convicted were arrested in August last year after they raised a black flag looking similar to the one known as the IS flag in downtown Norak.
In August, seven men raised a similar flag in the Shahritous district of Khatlon province. They were sentenced in December to prison terms between seven and 27 years.
