by MUSHFIG BAYRAM
On 3 August, 8 days after the NSC secret police arrested Muzaffar Davlatmirov, a respected 58-year-old Ismaili religious leader, Badakhshan Regional Court jailed him for 5 years for alleged “public calls for extremist activity”. “Davlatmirov is not an extremist, and did not call for ‘extremist’ activity,” a local person who knows him told Forum 18. His relatives and friends do not know where he is serving his sentence. There are now at least 7 prisoners of conscience known to be jailed for exercising freedom of religion or belief, one a Jehovah’s Witness and the others Muslim. The regime has also closed all Ismaili prayer houses in Mountainous Badakhshan, and the Ismaili Education Centre in Khorugh. On 26 July the NSC secret police arrested Muzaffar Davlatmirov, a 58-year-old Ismaili religious leader in Khorugh. Just eight days later, on 3 August, Badakhshan Regional Court handed him a five-year prison sentence under Criminal Code Article 307-1 (“Public calls for extremist activity”), Part 2 (“committed using the mass media or the internet”). The possible punishments are between five and 10 years jail. This article has been used by the regime to target a variety of Muslims.
“That Davlatmirov was arrested on 26 July and in early August given a prison sentence shows that the Court is a theatre,” Independent journalist Anora Sarkorova commented to Forum 18 on 7 October. “The order came from the central authorities, and the Court had to sentence him quickly,” she noted (see below).
Khorugh is the capital of the Mountainous Badakhshan Autonomous Region (also known from Russian as Gorno-Badakhshan). The region has seen increasing repression by the regime since a local resident was in November 2021 killed by security forces. As Bruce Pannier has observed on bne IntelliNews, the region has a history of independence from the regime and the Ismaili Aga Khan Foundation has played a large role in the region’s development (see below).
“Davlatmirov was widely known and respected by the local Ismaili people,” independent journalist Sarkorova told Forum 18. She noted that he had criticised the regime’s religious policies, and argued for the preservation of local Pamiri traditions. Davlatmirov also, she stated, criticised the regime’s violent suppression in May of peaceful protests (see below). The suppression of protest is claimed by the regime to be an “anti-terrorism operation.”
Independent journalist Sarkarova commented that the regime did not like the fact that Davlatmirov was respected in the region, and that he could influence people. She thought it was possible that prisoner of conscience Davlatmirov was jailed because he said the janaza (funeral) prayers at the funeral in May of three local informal leaders killed during the regime’s violent suppression of peaceful protests.
Mountainous Badakhshan regional government spokesperson Gholib Niyatbekov refused to comment when Forum 18 noted that prisoner of conscience Davlatmirov did not violate the law by praying at funerals.
Forum 18 for more