The Interior Ministry reportedly does not have information about an incident that took place outside the home of the jailed activist of the Islamic Revival Party of Tajikistan (IRPT), Rahmatullo Rajab, in Dushanbe yesterday evening.
Ozodagon news agency reports that a group of young people pelted Rahmatullo Rajab’s house with eggs and burned portraits and posters in front of the home yesterday evening.
“Nobody has applied to the Interior Ministry on this subject and nobody has complained,” Umarjon Emomali, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, told Asia-Plus in an interview today morning.
“We have heard about this incident for the first time,” the spokesman added.
Meanwhile, Ozodagon says similar actions had also been carried out outside the homes of the jailed deputy IRPT leader Saidumar Husaini and the late leader of the IRPT Said Abdullo Nuri.
The youth activists reportedly asserted that children of Husain and Nuri had participated in a silent protest in Warsaw.
According to EurasiaNet.org, some youth activists also burned images of IRPT leader Muhiddin Kabiri outside the home of his 95-year-old father.
As it had been reported earlier, some 20 Tajik opposition and rights activists residing in Europe held a silent protest in Warsaw on September 19 during the OSCE conference session where the situation of human rights in Tajikistan was being discussed.
The protesters wore T-shirts with portraits of Tajik opposition politicians and lawyers who were jailed in the country in recent months. Human rights groups have called the cases politically motivated.
Tajikistan’s official delegation reacted to the barrage of criticism by demonstratively walking out of the ODIHR conference. “The representatives of organizations banned in Tajikistan started harassing and putting pressure on our delegation from the very first days [of the conference]. Because of this intimidation, three journalists left the event and civil society representatives generally avoided contact with them and did not even participate in side events,” the Tajik delegation said in a statement.
