19 Dec 2014 at about 8:30 a.m., 7 officers of the Secret Service of the Republic of Turkey in civilian clothes came to the house, where Umarali Kuvvatov lived with the family, arrested him and conducted a search of the apartment. Some equipment and documents related to the political activities of the leader of “Group 24” were confiscated without inventory. On that day, the Secret Service of the Republic of Turkey arrested Kuvvatov’s comrades and activists of Group 24 Suhrob Zafar, Hussein Ashurov and Abdurashid Khomidov, who were together with Kuvvatov. Later they commented, that the reason for the detention of the leader of Group 24 and his colleagues was a phone call from Tajikistan. The officers of the Turkish secret services behaved politely, understanding that the detention was a political order.
The Association “Human Rights in Central Asia” reacted very strongly to this incident and demanded from the Turkish authorities to provide detainees with lawyers, and prevent the representative of the UNHCR from registering their applications for provision of international protection. This human rights organization has sent the message about the detention of these persons to the Turkish MFA, UNHCR office in Turkey, head office of UNHCR in Geneva, HRW, Amnesty International and other organizations. After these events in Turkey, 20 January 2015 in Moscow the leader of another opposition movement “Youth for the revival of Tajikistan” and a close partner of Umarali Kuvvatov-Maksud Ibragimov was kidnapped. The group composed of five people, one of whom was dressed in police uniform and others in civilian clothes, broke into Ibragimov’s residence, identifying as FMS workers and despite the resistance of the guard, without reason, took away Maksud by force in an unknown direction. After some time Ibragimov’s relatives received a phone call and were told that he would be extradited to Tajikistan. Ibragimov’s Lawyer told journalists, that the kidnapping could have been committed in the framework of a special operation of the FSS of Russia or the KNS of Tajikistan.
20 Jan 2015 it turned out that Maksud Ibragimov was deprived of the citizenship of the Russian Federation and extradited to Tajikistan. He had lived more than 10 years in Russia and during receiving the citizenship of the Russian Federation he renounced the citizenship of the Republic of Tajikistan according to the existing law, despite the agreement on dual citizenship between the two countries.
22 Jan 2015, Ibragimov’s relatives received a call from from Ibragimov phone from the police Department of the city of Moscow, requiring to collect Ibragimov’s personal belongings. On the same day Magsud’s brother went and got his passport, money and car keys. It was reported that Ibragimov was released from the police station. Finding out about this, Ibragimov’s relatives complained about his kidnapping, but their statement was made semi-official and they were explained that either he was released or was conveyed to the law enforcement of Tajikistan upon their request. To the objection of his relatives, that the convey is impossible, because Ibragimov is a citizen of the Russian Federation, the police announced, that the decision was made by the FMS of Russia, his Russian passport was cancelled a year ago as a wrongly issued pass.
27 Jan 2015 Maksud’s family asked the office for criminal cases of the Preobrajensk’s court in order to establish the legality of his arrest and extradition. However, it was explained that the court did not consider such a case. After they contacted the Preobrajenski Prosecutor’s office, they confirmed his arrest and extradition. On 28th Jan 2014, lawyer of the Committee of the “Civil assistance” I. Vasiliev submitted an application to the European court of human rights about the application of Rule 39 of the court’s rules to prevent his extradition to Tajikistan. In his statement, he stressed the certainty of torture against M. Ibragimov in Tajikistan.
On 30th January 2015, the Prosecutor General’s office of Tajikistan reported that Maksud Ibragimov was in prison in Dushanbe.
On February 03, 2015, after the requirements of international human rights organizations in the case of Umarali Quvvatov and his comrades, the court made a decision for their release. The Tajik side has not been able to achieve their extradition to Tajikistan.
Based on all above mentioned, it can be concluded that this whole chain of events with the leaders of opposition movements, was the work of the dictatorial regime of Rahmon and his security services. After the so-called “secret agreement” with the Russian side, the Tajik secret services carefully planned these operations and with the chain came to the desired results. Against Maksud Ibragimov they have achieved the desired result surely with the help of Russian colleagues, thereby once again proving the truly dictatorial regime. Also, Russia has shown how it values its citizens and what you could expect from Russia in relation to its citizens when political benefits stand on the other side. According to the law all Russian citizens regardless of nationality are equal before the state. Anyways, Maksud Ibragimov was the victim of a political conspiracy and that’s a fact. The person, who was so many years a citizen of Russia and renounced the citizenship of Tajikistan, suddenly found out that his Russian passport a had been cancelled a year ago and for this whole time he lived with invalid passport in Russia. It is certainly hard to believe. It is still unknown what Rahmonov promised in return, but the “Group of 24” is grateful to Russia for the fact, that many years the citizens of Tajikistan are working in Russia and are supporting their families. Also, the “Group 24” intends to continue cooperation with Russia and will try to prove, that without Rahmonov it will be better for Tajikistan, and Russia.
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Group 24
