KHUJAND, November 13, 2014, Asia-Plus — 38 residents of the northern Sughd province have been detained on suspicion of membership in banned parties and organizations and trying to take part in Syrian conflict, according to the Sughd prosecutor’s office.
An official source at the Sughd prosecutor’s office says two residents of Sughd, who were trying to go to Syria to fight on the side of anti-government forces, were detained on September 26, 2014.
“Later police detained eight other people, who were recruited by those two to fight in Syria,” the source noted.
According to him, 28 other people, members of Jamaat Ansarullah and Islamic Movement of Turkestan, were detained in the area later. “They were also trying to take part in the Syrian conflict,” the source added.
Criminal proceedings against those 38 people have reportedly been instituted under the provisions of three articles of Tajikistan’s Penal Code: Article 187 (1) – organization of a criminal group; Article 401’ (1) – illegally involving Tajik nationals and stateless people permanently living in Tajikistan in foreign armed conflicts; and Article 347 (2) – not reporting crime or concealing grave or especially grave crime. An investigation is under way.
We will recall that Tajik President Emomali Rahmon noted September 18, 2014 that some 200 Tajik nationals have joined Islamist militants in Iraq and Syria. Rahmon said that 30 Tajiks fighting alongside the jihadi groups have been killed abroad, while several others have been arrested upon their return to Tajikistan.
In December 2013, Tajikistan”s Supreme Court sentenced five of the country”s citizens to around two years in jail for fighting on the side of antigovernment forces in Syria. The five were reportedly students at the Syrian International University who decided to join Syrian rebel forces. All five were detained in October when they returned to Tajikistan. Since Tajikistan did not have a law against “mercenaries” that time, the five were charged with “participation in a criminal group or in other armed groups.”
On May 22, 2014, the Tajik parliament approved an amendment to the Criminal Code stipulating punishment for Tajik nationals taking part in foreign armed conflicts.
