Human Rights groups express concern that family and friends of opposition politician Mahmadali Hayit, sentenced to life imprisonment, were denied a meeting with him.

28 Novem­ber 2021

Sav­rin­iso Dzhu­rabekova, the wife of Mahmadali Hay­it said that they were sched­uled to meet on Novem­ber 24 but she, her son and Mahmadali Hay­it ’s sis­ter were denied a meet­ing. They were told that the meet­ing had been can­celed because Mahmadali Hay­it viol­ated the pris­on rules. The pris­on admin­is­tra­tion did not cla­ri­fy what this viol­a­tion was.

“Mahmadali Hay­it is giv­en a right to meet his fam­ily once every six months 30 minutes. This is very cruel. Now this right to see his loved ones is arbit­rar­ily reduced even more, to one time per year for 30 minutes. To deprive him even of this right is inhu­man, while he isn’t even sup­posed to be in pris­on in the first place. He is imprisoned unlaw­fully”, said Far­hod Odin­aev, human rights defend­er from Asso­ci­ation for Cent­ral Asi­an Migrants 

Mahmadali Hay­it, one of Tajikistan’s highest-pro­file polit­ic­al pris­on­ers, was deputy chair­man of the Islam­ic Renais­sance Party of Tajikistan, banned in Tajikistan. He has been sen­tenced to life in pris­on on June 2, 2016 by the Supreme Court of Tajikistan on charges of involve­ment in an attemp­ted mil­it­ary rebel­lion by former Deputy Defense Min­is­ter Abdukhalim Naz­ar­zoda. In this case, almost all mem­bers of the lead­er­ship of the IRPT were arres­ted, and the party was declared ter­ror­ist and banned as a part of a massive crack­down on polit­ic­al opposition.

“We are con­cerned about his fam­ily not being allowed to see him, because we don’t know what the actu­al reas­on for the deni­al is. Mahmadali Hay­it is in a very fra­gile health and is sys­tem­at­ic­ally sub­jec­ted to tor­ture and ill — treat­ment. Is he ill? Is he again sub­jec­ted to tor­ture, inhu­man pun­ish­ment, such as sent to pun­ish­ment cell (SHIZO)? The fam­ily must be allowed to see him and con­firm he is ok”, says Ilk­hom­jon Yoqubov,

Dir­ect­or of NGO Asso­ci­ation of Cent­ral Asi­an Migrants.

In April 2018, the UN Work­ing Group on Arbit­rary Deten­tion found that Hay­it ‘s arrest and sen­ten­cing in Septem­ber 2015 viol­ated inter­na­tion­al law. “The depriva­tion of liberty of Hay­it viol­ated art­icles 9, 10, 19, 20 and 21 of the Uni­ver­sal Declar­a­tion of Human Rights, as well as art­icles 9, 14, 19, 21 and 25 of the Inter­na­tion­al Cov­en­ant on Civil and Polit­ic­al Rights”. The UN Work­ing Group deman­ded that Dush­anbe imme­di­ately release Mahmadali Hay­it. Tajikistan refused to com­ply with the findings.

Asso­ci­ation for Cent­ral Asi­an Migrants, NGO “Free­dom for Euras­ia”, Buzurgmehr Yorov Found­a­tion, Tajik Cen­ter for Human Rights, The Civil Com­mit­tee for the Pro­tec­tion of Polit­ic­al Host­ages and Pris­on­ers in Tajikistan urge Tajikistan’s inter­na­tion­al part­ners to press Tajik author­it­ies to respect decisions of inter­na­tion­al bod­ies in regards to the case of Mahmadali Hay­it and urgently allow the fam­ily of Mahmadali Hay­it see him to ensure he is safe and healthy.