Leader of Islamic Party of Tajikistan is afraid to return to Tajikistan
DUSHANBE. June 19 (Interfax) - Mukhiddin Kabiri, chairman of Tajikistan's largest opposition Islamic Revival Party, is afraid to return to his home country because he expects to be persecuted for political motives.
"I was surprised when they announced before the upcoming state media holiday that they were preparing a criminal case against me because I illegally sold my property wrong 17 years ago," Kabiri was quoted by the Islamic Revival Party headquarters as saying at the international conference Central Asia: Modern Challenges held in Moscow.
Tajikistan will mark the National Reconciliation Day, the 18th anniversary of the signing of the inter-Tajik peace agreement, which put an end to a five-year civil war, on June 27.
"What criminal case can there be if it was my property? In any case, if there are any questions to me, we could discuss them after the holiday, bearing in mind that I was a deputy twice in these 18 years," Kabiri said.
Kabiri, who represented the Islamic Revival Party in the parliament in 2005-2015, said "the condition for the implementation of the peace agreement are massively violated by the authorities."
According to the peace agreement of 1997, representatives of the United Tajik Opposition received a 30% quota in the government. However, this quota decreased every year: representatives of the United Tajik Opposition were forced to leave the administration, and many of them were convicted or killed.
"The pressure on the Islamic Revival Party not only does not promote stability, but, on the contrary, increases radical ideas in the country, Kabiri said, adding that he believes it will cause more young people to sympathize with the terrorist organization Islamic State and other extremist groups.
On June 17, the Islamic Revival Party called on Tajik President Emomali Rahmon to fulfill his duties as "guarantor of the Constitution." The party previously sought protection in the Interior Ministry, the Prosecutor General's Office, the Supreme Court, and the State National Security Committee, but, according to its address to the president, "did not receive from these bodies clear answers to its inquiries."
The Islamic Revival Party did not get any seats in the parliament in the March 1 parliamentary elections in Tajikistan. That happened for the first time in the history of contemporary Tajikistan.
The government newspaper Chumkhuriyat reported in early June that members of the Islamic Revival Party are leaving Tajikistan for Syria, where they join ISIS.
The Islamic Revival Party is the only legal religious party in the former Soviet republics.