Tajikistan: Exiled Opposition Figure Stabbed in Moscow

An exiled Tajik journalist is in intensive care after receiving multiple knife wounds in a Moscow restaurant. Dodojon Atovulloyev, leader of the Vatandor (Patriot) movement, and editor of Charogi Ruz (Light of the Day), was reportedly stabbed in the liver and lung late on January 12. He is in serious, but stable, condition.

Russian police say they have detained a 23-year-old suspect from Tajikistan. 

Atovulloyev, 56, fled Tajikistan in 1992, after his newspaper was banned and he was charged with inciting ethnic and religious hatred. In subsequent years, Dushanbe has repeatedly asked Moscow to extradite him for insulating President Emomali Rakhmon and attempting to overthrow the government, charges often leveled against critics in Central Asia. He was granted asylum in Germany in 2002 and continued to work from Moscow and Hamburg.

Veteran Central Asia watcher Arkady Dubnov said on January 13 he was certain the attack was an “order” from Dushanbe, the Asia-Plus news agency quoted him as saying. 

In 2001, Russian authorities detained Atovulloyev at Dushanbe’s request, but released him after international pressure. Rights watchdogs have long said Atovulloyev is being persecuted for his political views. 

Charges were officially dropped in a 2002 parliamentary amnesty. But five days after Atovulloyev returned home in 2004, he fled again, claiming he had been threatened and feared for his life, the Associated Press reported at the time. As recently as April 2011, Dushanbe had asked for his extradition, according to Interfax. 

The attack evokes the brutal February 2011 beating of Hikmatulloh Saifullohzoda, a prominent member of the embattled Islamic Renaissance Party (IRPT), outside his Dushanbe home. A legally registered opposition movement, the IRPT has barely squeaked into parliament in recent elections, which international observers routinely call fraudulent and unfair.