A criminal case was launched against journalist Anora Sarkorova in Tajikistan.

Law enforcement agencies informed Anora Sarkorova's mother that a criminal case was opened against her daughter, who currently resides in Europe, but she will be pardoned, if "she returns and apologizes."

On February 2, Anora Sarkorova told Radio Ozodi that the authorities invited her mother to the Department for Combating Organized Crime.

"When my mother entered the investigator's office, he showed her two criminal cases. One had the name Rustamjon Joniev, and the other Anora Sarkorova," the journalist noted.

A case against Rustam Joni, a journalist and husband of Anora Sarkorova, was initiated earlier. He is accused of public calls for extremism, public justification of extremist activities, and propaganda of extremism.

Dilovar Mamadlatif, the investigator who spoke with Sarkorova's mother, did not respond to multiple calls from Radio Ozodi.

One source in the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) said on February 2 that based on information he received from the MIA’s Department for GBAO and the department of internal affairs of the city district of Sino," indeed, a criminal case was opened against Anora Sarkorova."

A Radio Ozodi source noted, however, that he was not familiar with the circumstances of the criminal case. Anora Sarkorova herself believes that the criminal case against her was initiated under Article 307 section 1 (Public calls for extremist activities and public justification of extremism) of the Criminal Code of the RT.

Anora Sarkorova, a former journalist for the Russian service of the BBC, and Rustam Joni, former editor of Radio "Imruz" and the eponymous print publication, actively covered the bloody events in Badakhshan in 2022.

Authorities have repeatedly summoned Anora Sarkorova's mother to security agencies and the police. "I am of age, an adult, and if there are questions for me, they should ask me, not my elderly mother, who has a weak heart. After each such call, she feels bad, she is sick for a long time. I will answer for my actions, not my children, not my mother," Sarkorova told us.

About the promised amnesty by the authorities, if she and her husband voluntarily return to Tajikistan, the journalist said: "I don't need any amnesty, as I haven't done anything illegal. I wrote about what is not written in the Tajik press. I wrote about the pervasive violation of rights in Pamir... and I will continue to do this."

Over the past years, the government of Tajikistan has been constantly criticized for suppressing journalists and opposition and limiting freedom of expression. Only in the past two years, 2022 and 2023, eight journalists have been sentenced to long prison terms.

https://rus.ozodi.org/a/32802740.html

Artificial intelligence capabilities were used in the translation of this publication.