Criminal proceedings instituted against 20 alleged Muslim brotherhood members in northern Tajikistan

Law enforcement authorities in the northern Sughd province have instituted criminal proceedings against twenty local residents on suspicion of being members of Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist organization outlawed in Tajikistan.

Among them are residents of the cities of Khujand, Isfara and Istaravshan as well as the Bobojon-Ghafourov district, a source within the Sughd law enforcement authorities told Asia-Plus in an interview.

According to him, all of them had studied at religious schools abroad.  There are reportedly teachers of higher educational institutions among them.  

Criminal proceedings have been instituted against them under the provisions of Article 307’ (2) of Tajikistan’s Penal Code — organization of an extremism community and participation in an extremist community.  An investigation is under way.      

More than 100 residents of the province have been questioned as witnesses over this case, the source added.

Recall, twenty imams were arrested in the Tajik northern province of Sughd in 2016 for allegedly being members of the Muslim Brotherhood movement.  They were accused of receiving funds from abroad and of spreading the movement’s ideology in Tajikistan, ultimately seeking to overthrow the secular government in the country.

Tajikistan’s Prosecutor-General Yusuf Rahmon told reporters in Dushanbe on January 28 that 113 people have been arrested in the country on suspicion of being members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood group.

According to him, the suspects included 20 teachers and employees of various universities, two foreigners, and one official from the northern city of Isfara.

“The group's goal is to forcibly overthrow the government and establish an Islamic state, and it has been banned as a terrorist and extremist organization in many countries,” the prosecutor said.   

Tajikistan banned the Muslim Brotherhood as an extremist group in 2006 and it faces a similar ban in Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. It is not banned in Kyrgyzstan.

It is considered a terrorist organization in Tajikistan, Syria, Egypt, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and Russia but not in the United States or other Western countries.