On September 29, 2023, President of Tajikistan Emomali Rahmon met with President of Germany Frank-Walter Steinmeier in Berlin. The official event took place against the backdrop of protest rallies organized by representatives of the Tajik opposition and civil society activists. The rallies took place on September 28 and 29, 2023. As the participants of the rallies told Freedom for Eurasia representatives, the Tajik law enforcement agencies began to massively detain relatives and friends of those who participated in the rallies in Germany. At the moment we have reliable information about the detention of relatives and friends of 15 participants in the rallies.
According to information received directly from the relatives, people are detained without any explanation. Detainees are subjected to ill-treatment, threats, blackmail and insults. Among the detainees are an elderly man of 81 years old and a one-and-a-half-year-old child. At the moment, there are more than 40 cases of unlawful detentions taking place in different regions of Tajikistan.
From the analysis of information on pressure on relatives of opposition representatives received by human rights organizations over the past few years, it can be concluded that the authorities of the Republic of Tajikistan have revived a type of collective responsibility known in history as “Sippenhaft”, when all relatives are punished for the actions of individual family members. “Sippenhaft” was widely used in Nazi Germany.
We call on the international community, human rights organizations, governments and representatives of the diplomatic missions in Tajikistan to take urgent and necessary measures to put pressure on Tajik authorities to release innocent citizens.
