The international human rights organization Amnesty International has officially appealed to Tajik President Emomali Rahmon with a request to intervene in the case of Abdullo Shamsiddin, the son of an oppositionist expelled from Germany.
Abdullo Shamsiddin was deported from Germany to Tajikistan on January 18 of this year, and today his fate is unknown: earlier, the Prosecutor General and the Minister of Internal Affairs of the country stated that they did not know anything about the whereabouts of Abdullo Shamsiddin, and A. Shamsiddin’s relatives reported that he was in the pre-trial detention center of the State Committee for National Security, but do not have information about what he is accused of.
Amnesty International wrote in a March 10 letter to Tajik President Emomali Rahmon that in the absence of sufficient evidence to charge A. Shamsiddin “should be released immediately.”
AI suggests that, apparently, Abdullo Shamsiddin is being persecuted because of his father, Shamsiddin Saidov, a former assistant to the founder of the IRPT, Said Abdullo Nuri.
Abdullo Shamsiddin disappeared as soon as he landed in Tajikistan.
Earlier, the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Tajikistan and the Prosecutor General stated that they did not know anything about the whereabouts of A. Shamsiddin. However, on March 7, Sumaya Pirova, his wife, told Radio Ozodi that her husband called her and told her that he was in the detention center of the State Committee for National Security.
“The detention of a person without charge and incommunicado (without communication with the outside world – ed.) is a violation of human rights and must be stopped immediately. In this situation, the detainee may be subjected to torture and ill-treatment,” emphasizes Amnesty International.
This human rights organization turned to Emomali Rahmon with a request to establish the place of detention of Abdullo Shamsiddin and take control of his fate in order to exclude the possible use of torture and ill-treatment.
“Abdullo Shamsiddin must be immediately released if his involvement in the crime is not proven. Otherwise, he should have the right to freely choose a lawyer and his whereabouts should be known to his relatives,” the letter says.
This letter has been sent to the executive office of the President of Tajikistan. The authorities of Tajikistan have not yet officially commented on the case of Abdullo Shamsiddin.
Abdullo Shamsiddin, 32, has lived in Germany since 2009. Earlier it was reported that the oppositionist’s son’s problems began after he failed to register with the German migration service in a timely manner. The IRPT also admitted that one of the reasons for his expulsion from Germany was the provision of false personal data to the German authorities.
A staff member at the Tajik embassy in Berlin said in January that Abdullo Shamsiddin had previously been detained on suspicion of using violence against a woman and that the court had ordered him to pay a fine. Shamsiddin’s relatives do not deny this fact, but they say that it happened 11 years ago.
Representatives of the National Alliance of Tajikistan, banned in Tajikistan, which united opposition groups abroad, have previously stated that if deported to their homeland, the son of an IRPT activist is threatened with torture and a prison term. Shamsiddin Saidov himself, a former assistant to the founder of the IRPT Said Abdullo Nuri, was sentenced in absentia to 15 years in prison by the court of Khatlon region in January 2018.
After the IRPT was declared a terrorist organization by the Tajik authorities and its activities were banned in the country, many members and supporters of this and other political groups and movements opposed to the government fled to Europe, including Germany, and asked for asylum. The authorities of European countries do not satisfy all petitions, and earlier the media reported several cases of expulsion and imprisonment in the homeland of asylum seekers.
Source: Radio Ozodi