Six were arrested while they were having a meal in a local cafe. Officers of Bukhara City Police and the then NSS secret police arrested him, his brother Saidjamol Kulijanov, and eighteen others. Trouble for Kulijanov and other members of Bukhara's Shia Muslim community who used to attend the city's Khoji mir Ali Shia Mosque began on 2 February 2017. It added that the Chief Directorate was sending Kulijanov's petition to "the authorised State organ", the State Commission on pardoning convicts.Įarlier arrest of Kulijanov and his Shia co-believers "Kulijanov was made aware of the request and he gave his agreement to write a petition for pardoning," Akromov's response, seen by Forum 18, declares. On 29 January, Bahodir Akromov, Deputy Head (now acting head) of the Interior Ministry's Chief Directorate for the Enforcement of Punishments, which oversees prisons, sent his relatives a written response.Īkromov said in the letter, seen by Forum 18, that the request sent to the President for Kulijanov to be pardoned had been handed to the Chief Directorate. Its functions appear to remain the same.įollowing his jailing, Kulijanov's relatives wrote a petition on his behalf to President Mirziyoyev. On 14 March, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev renamed the secret police from the National Security Service to the State Security Service (SSS). Officials have refused to discuss with Forum 18 allegations that officers of the then National Security Service (NSS) secret police tortured Kulijanov and others from Bukhara's Shia Muslim community with beatings to extract confessions (see below). Later in 2017, while he was already in pre-trial detention, he and another Shia Muslim were given a criminal conviction and fined (see below). Kulijanov was among nearly 20 Shia Muslims detained in Bukhara in February 2017 and was one of five subsequently jailed for several weeks. While most Uzbek Muslims are Sunnis, a small Shia minority – many of them ethnic Iranians – live in and around the southern cities of Bukhara and Samarkand. Some community members suggest the authorities may have targeted Kulijanov because he was being spoken of as a potential imam to lead the city's Khoji mir Ali Shia Mosque (see below). "Kulijanov is an innocent Shia believer, the case was fabricated," Shukhrat Ganiyev, an independent human rights defender from Bukhara, who helped in preparing Kulijanov's defence, complained to Forum 18 on 19 March. Punishments can be severe, and from around 2013 the authorities have often jailed for up to five years or fined Muslims (including foreign citizens) found with the Koran and Muslim sermons on their mobile phones (see Forum 18's Uzbekistan religious freedom survey ). Officials often search mobile phones and other electronic devices in the hunt for religious materials which have not undergone the compulsory prior state censorship of all religious materials. Human rights defenders deny that the materials – on the history of Shia Islam – constituted incitement to harm the human rights of others (see below). The five-year term is deemed to run from his arrest on. "Send your questions to them."īukhara Regional Criminal Court jailed Jahongir Rizoyevich Kulijanov (born 5 October 1982) in October 2017 on charges of storing "extremist religious materials" on his mobile phone and computer. When Forum 18 insisted with the question, he referred Forum 18 to the Foreign Ministry. "You need to come to our office to find out," he replied. Yet he remains in prison in the southern town of Kyzyltepa.Īkromov's assistant, who refused to give his name, refused to tell Forum 18 on 29 March at what stage the consideration of Kulijanov's amnesty request is. Bahodir Akromov, now the acting head of the Interior Ministry's Chief Directorate for the Enforcement of Punishments, told relatives on 29 January that his Chief Directorate had forwarded Kulijanov's application for a pardon to the State Commission which considers such pardons. Relatives of Shia Muslim Jahongir Kulijanov, serving a five-year prison term for exercising freedom of religion or belief, are hoping his appeal for a pardon will be granted and he will be freed.
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