Tajikistan: [Coerced?] Islamist Testifies Against BBC Reporter

Tajik authorities are usually reluctant to trust Islamic extremists -- except when they’re ratting out others. 

Just two months ago, Dushanbe dropped troublesome charges that a BBC reporter was a member of a banned Islamic radical group. 

But this week a court in Khujand read a letter by an imprisoned “Hizb-ut-Tahrir leader” claiming that Urinboy Usmonov is indeed a supporter of the group, the Asia-Plus news agency reported on September 20. 

Usmonov, who works for the BBC’s Uzbek service, was disappeared in June and later charged with being a member of Hizb-ut-Tahrir. He spent a month in jail, where he was denied legal counsel and claims he was tortured until a chorus of international opprobrium embarrassed Dushanbe into releasing him. He still faces charges of not informing Tajikistan’s security services about his meetings with Islamists, however – meetings he says he held as a reporter. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists say the sham charge “criminalizes journalism.” 

So what to make of the new testimony? Is someone in the government trying to resurrect the case against Usmonov? He is supposedly only being tried for not tattling on his sources. Could members of Tajikistan’s intelligence services be trying to save face, embarrassed at being reprimanded for the investigation and arrest? 

One thing is for certain: Sharif Yoqubov, the so-called Hizb-ut-Tahrir leader who allegedly wrote the inimical letter, isn’t a reliable witness. 

Torture is common in Tajik prisons, where Yoqubov has been since June, especially to coerce admissions from suspected extremists. In fact, Amnesty International has an alarming new report on that blight today.