Press Release
Vienna, 19 October 2026
Freedom for Eurasia (FFE) strongly condemns the sentence handed down by a Tajik court to 54-year-old opposition activist Asadullo Boboev. FFE has learned that Boboev was sentenced to 17 years’ imprisonment on three counts under the Criminal Code of the Republic of Tajikistan, including Article 307 (“Public calls for the violent change of the constitutional order”). The remaining charges, the date of the verdict and the court have not yet been made public [to be confirmed].
Asadullo Boboev is a member of the Europe-based opposition movement Reforms and Development of Tajikistan (RDT) and criticised the government of Emomali Rahmon on social media. In 2017 he left Tajikistan with his family, first for Lithuania and then for Germany, where he applied for asylum (Azattyq Asia; Human Rights Watch).
On 8 June 2026, Boboev and his 19-year-old son Muhammad were placed in immigration detention in North Rhine-Westphalia. Speaking from detention, Boboev told RFE/RL that Tajik authorities had opened an extremism case against him. A German court had given him until 1 July to demonstrate the risk of persecution. Yet on 20 June, father and son were flown from Munich to Dushanbe, despite dozens of pages of evidence submitted by his lawyer (Current Time).
His pre-removal detention had been authorised by a court in Geldern on the grounds of expired residence status and failure to leave voluntarily (The Diplomat). The case of a political opponent of the regime was thus reduced to a migration violation, and the real risk of persecution at home was never properly assessed.
On arrival, Boboev was detained and placed in the pre-trial detention facility of the State Committee for National Security (GKNB). For more than two months his family was unable to see him, and food and clothing parcels were refused. He was denied access to an independent lawyer, and human rights defenders reported that he may have been beaten on board the deportation flight (Azattyq Asia; Ozodi).
The warnings came long before the verdict. On 14 July, the Poland-based Civic Committee for the Rescue of Hostages and Political Prisoners of Tajikistan urged German authorities, the European Union, UN bodies and the ICRC to secure Boboev’s access to an independent lawyer and his family, international monitoring of his detention conditions, and protection from torture. On 7 July, Human Rights Watch called on Germany to examine the circumstances of the deportation and press Dushanbe over his detention (Azattyq Asia). German authorities did not publicly respond [to be checked].
A systemic problem. Boboev is the fourth documented Tajik opposition activist deported by Germany since 2023 and detained on arrival. The other three, Abdullohi Shamsiddin, Bilol Qurbonaliev and Dilmurod Ergashev, received sentences of 7, 10 and 8 years respectively on charges Human Rights Watch considers fabricated (HRW; JURIST). Hizbullo Shovalizoda, deported from Austria, was sentenced to 20 years (RFE/RL). Boboev’s sentence is one of the harshest in this series.
“[Quote from Leila Seiitbek, for example: The sentence against Asadullo Boboev is the direct consequence of Germany’s decision to send a man to a country where prison and torture awaited him. European states cannot hide behind ‘residence permit issues’ when the person concerned is a critic of a dictatorship. Every such deportation is a gift to the Rahmon regime and a message to all Tajik exiles: Europe will not protect you.]” said FFE Chairwoman Leila Nazgul Seiitbek.
FFE calls on:
- The authorities of Tajikistan to release Asadullo Boboev immediately, guarantee him access to an independent lawyer of his choice, family visits and medical care, and disclose the case file.
- The German government to acknowledge the breach of the principle of non-refoulement (Article 3 ECHR, Article 3 UN Convention against Torture), to seek access to Boboev and his release through diplomatic channels, to introduce a moratorium on deportations of Tajik opposition members, and to revise its country assessment of Tajikistan.
- The EU, the OSCE and the International Committee of the Red Cross to demand independent monitoring of Boboev’s detention conditions.
- The UN Special Rapporteurs on torture and on human rights defenders, and the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, to request information on the case from Tajikistan.