RFE/RL’s Tajik Service is a trusted source of local news, attracting audiences with compelling reporting on issues not otherwise covered by Tajikistan’s state-run media.
While most Tajik opposition leaders have left the country amid a brutal government crackdown, Shokirjon Hakimov remained in Dushanbe and continued to openly criticize the authorities. Earlier this month, Tajikistan arrested the opposition politician and silenced a rare voice of dissent.
Some 3,400 Tajik migrant workers have not been allowed to enter Russia and turned back to Tajikistan from Russian airports over the last six months, the director of the Tajik Civil Aviation Agency, Habibullo Nazarzoda, told reporters on July 24.
Chinese firms are tapping into Tajikistan’s vast mineral wealth -- and angering Tajiks as they pollute the environment in the process -- yet still get preferential treatment from the government, an RFE/RL investigation has revealed.
Sources close to Tajikistan's Prosecutor-General's Office told RFE/RL on July 18 that noted Tajik lawyer and First Deputy Chairman of the Social Democratic Party of Tajikistan Shakirjon Hakimov was detained last week.
Sources close to Uzbek law enforcement told RFE/RL that noted ethnic Tajik journalist, Salim Inomzoda, was arrested on July 13 over a song he placed on social media.
The Chinese Embassy in Dushanbe on July 15 denied media reports that Beijing is building a military base in Tajikistan, calling the reports “groundless.”
Dozens of Tajik migrant workers returned to Tajikistan on July 8 after Russian authorities refused them entry to the country five days earlier amid a wave of anti-Tajik sentiment.
Sojida Saidmurodova, the mother of former top police officer Dilshod Saidmurodov, who is serving life in prison for kidnapping and killing a banker last year, was sentenced to 13 years in prison on corruption charges.
The Russian Wrestling Federation said on July 2 that Moscow police detained Alisher Ismatzoda, a coach of the Russian youth freestyle wrestling team, on suspicion of facilitating terrorist activities.
The parents of five young Tajik men from the volatile Gorno-Badakhshan region (GBAO) told RFE/RL on July 1 that the sons had been arrested and are being held in a pretrial detention in GBAO's capital, Khorugh, on unspecified charges.
Ahmadshoh Komilzoda, a well-known journalist and the first deputy chairman of the Democratic Party of Tajikistan, has been arrested, a Tajik law enforcement source told RFE/RL on June 27.
The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom has expressed concern over recently adopted amendments to Tajikistan's law on the regulation of traditions and ceremonies, saying it worsens religious freedom violations in the Central Asian state.
Tajikistan has toughened the punishments for soothsaying and performing "healing sessions" for sick and disabled people as part of an ongoing campaign against those involved in fortune-telling, sorcery, or witchcraft.
The parents of five young Tajik men from the volatile Gorno-Badakhshan region told RFE/RL on June 23 that their sons did not arrive at the airport in the southern city of Kulob, where they were expected to arrive from Moscow on June 20 after Russian authorities deported them for unspecified reasons.
A Tajik-born scientist and former researcher at the University of Western Australia has been released after serving a 3 1/2-year prison sentence for inciting terrorism.
The former chairman of Tajikistan's parliament, which was known as the Supreme Council until the early 1990s, has reportedly been detained on unspecified charges.
Several sources told RFE/RL that former Tajik Foreign Minister Hamrohkhon Zarifi was arrested on unspecified charges last week.
The Tajik parliament's upper chamber, the Majlisi Milli, approved a bill on June 19 banning "alien garments" and children's celebrations for two major Islamic holidays -- Eid al-Fitr and Eid Al-Adha, known as idgardak.
Prosecutors have asked a court in the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, to convict and sentence to 14 years in prison on corruption charges Sojida Saidmurodova, the mother of former top police officer Dilshod Saidmurodov, who is serving life in prison for kidnapping and killing a banker last year.
Russian officials detained five residents of the village of Yazgulom in the volatile Gorno-Badakhshan autonomous region and extradited them to Tajikistan last week, where they were charged with "membership in an extremist organization," a source close to Tajik law enforcement told RFE/RL on June 17.
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