At the beginning of March 2017, Tajikistan’s Court of Appeal rejected Buzurgmehr Yorov’s appeal and upheld the previous court verdict of a 23 year prison term. The hearing was closed to the public and EU representatives were not permitted to observe the appeal.
More recently, on 16 March 2017, Yorov’s sentence was increased by a further two years by the Supreme Court of Tajikistan on the grounds that he was guilty of contempt and insulting a government official.
Buzurgmehr Yorov had just started representing the senior leaders of the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT) when he was arrested on 28 September 2015. Earlier that month the IRPT, which until then was the only Islamic political party legally registered in Central Asia, was banned and declared a terrorist organization by the government of Tajikistan. The senior leaders were arrested on various charges in September 2015. After meeting one of the leaders in pre-trial detention, Yorov gave an interview in which he said that detained political leaders were being tortured and publicly invited lawyers, human rights defenders and activists to unite to protect detainees. It was after giving this speech that Yorov was arrested.
On 6 October 2016, the Dushanbe City Court sentenced Yorov and his colleague Nuriddin Makhkamov, who also represented IRPT members and was arrested on 22 October 2015, to 23 and 21 years in prison respectively. Originally charged with fraud and forgery, the lawyers were subsequently charged with extremism. During the trial, which was closed to the public, the lawyers denied their guilt and argued that the case was politically motivated and related to their defense of IPRT members.
Lawyers for Lawyers has grave concerns about the situation of human rights lawyers in Tajikistan. Other lawyers representing political opponents or taking on politically sensitive cases have also been arrested, imprisoned, and intimidated. We shared our concerns in a letter to the UN Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers.
