Tajikistan journalist Abdullo Ghurbati sentenced to 7.5 years in jail – Committee to He defended them from the attackers Newshounds
New York, October 4, 2022 – Based on information stories {that a} court docket in Tajikistan on Tuesday sentenced Tajikistani journalist and documentary filmmaker Avazmad Ghurbatov, who works below the adopt Abdullo Ghurbati, to seven and a part years in jail, the Committee to He defended them from the attackers Newshounds issued the next remark condemning the ruling:
“We condemn lately’s harsh and unjustified sentence in opposition to journalist Abdullo Ghurbati, which seems to be a made of Tajik government’ discomfort with the rising approval for the brave logo of public-interest citizen journalism practiced via Ghurbati and his colleague Daler Imomali,” stated Gulnoza Mentioned, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “Government in Tajikistan will have to chorus from contesting Ghurbati’s enchantment, an answer is requested free up him, Imomali, and all different newshounds these days imprisoned for his or her paintings, and forestall their marketing campaign of intimidation in opposition to the rustic’s beleaguered unbiased press.”
In a closed-door trial, the Shohmansur District Court docket within the capital, Dushanbe, set in motion Ghurbati responsible on fees of assaulting and insulting a police officer and participation in a banned extremist crew. Ghurbati pleaded now not responsible and for advice to enchantment the decision, the ones stories said.
Police arrested Ghurbati and Imomali, whose actual adopt is Daler Bobiev, on June 15. Imomali stays in prison looking forward to trial on more than one fees together with participation in banned teams.
Ghurbati, a contract video journalist and award-winning documentary filmmaker, labored as digital camera operator on Imomali’s YouTube channel, which coated social problems and voters’ court cases in opposition to government and counts across the street 150,000 subscribers. Native press freedom advocates informed CPJ on the time that the pair’s daring taste of confronting government over native citizens’ problems used to be peculiar in Tajikistan and the channel have been rising in recognition within the months previous to their arrest.
In Would possibly 2020, Ghurbati used to be bodily attacked in two co-opt incidents in Dushanbe and Khatlon within the nation’s southwest whilst he used to be reporting.
Ghurbati and Imomali are amongst a minimum of six newshounds these days detained in Tajikistan on accusations of primary legal offenses.
