DUSHANBE, June 15, 2016, Asia-Plus – Seven mosque imams from the northern province of Sughd have been jailed after being convicted of being members of the Muslim Brotherhood.
A court in the Bobojonghafourov district sentenced the seven mosque imams to prison terms of between three and three years and four months.
The sentence was pronounced on June 7, but since the case was declared classified, the verdict was not made public.
All of the convicts were reportedly graduates of the Islamic University of Madinah, in Saudi Arabia. Investigators argue that the men were recruited to the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1990s, during studying at the University. They were arrested in March this year.
The Society of the Muslim Brothers, shortened to the Muslim Brotherhood, is a transnational Sunni Islamist organization founded in Egypt by Islamic scholar and schoolteacher Hassan al-Banna in 1928. The organization gained supporters throughout the Arab world. The Brotherhood”s stated goal is to instill the Qur”an and Sunnah as the “sole reference point for … ordering the life of the Muslim family,
individual, community … and state.”
The Muslim Brotherhood was banned in Tajikistan in 2006 and declared a terrorist group.
Meanwhile, five mosque imams from Sughd province were arrested last month for allegedly promoting extremist ideas and recruiting young people to join Islamist militant groups abroad.
Hasan Boboshukurov, the head of the department on religious affairs in Sughd’s Konibodom district, told
Radio Liberty’s Tajik Service
on May 19 that four of the men led mosque prayers and sermons in village mosques in Konibodom.
A local law enforcement official told
RFE/RL
on condition of anonymity that the group “had been actively working to recruit young people to take part in wars abroad.”
The official said the five imams” activities came to the authorities” attention after a tip from three other imams arrested in the same district in April.
Fifteen Muslim clerics were reportedly arrested on extremism charges in Konibodom and other districts of the northern Sughd province between January and April.
It is worth noting that imam khatibs are appointed in agreement with the government’s committee on religious affairs. They are obliged to follow refresher courses annually and must routinely re-register. Also, they are paid salaries from the state budget.
