Manuchehr Kholiqnazarov
Detained Since: May 30, 2022.
Charges: Criminal Code of Tajikistan Articles 187, part 2 (participation in a criminal organization) and 307 (3), part 2 (participating in the activities of a banned organization due to its extremist activities)
Sentence: 16 years in prison.
Biography: Manuchehr Kholiqnazarov is a prominent human rights lawyer and human rights advocate in Tajikistan currently serving a 16-year sentence. Kholiqnazarov has been persecuted as part of the Tajikistani government’s ongoing campaign against critics, the political opposition, human rights groups, civil society, the country’s minority ethnic Pamiri population, residents of the Gorno-Badakhshan Region (GBAO) of Tajikistan, and others which escalated dramatically in 2021. On December 9, 2022, Tajikistan’s Supreme Court found Kholiqnazarov guilty under Articles 187, part 2 (participation in a criminal organization) and 307 (3), part 2 (participating in the activities of a banned organization due to its extremist activities) of the Criminal Code sentencing him to 16 years’ imprisonment in a strict regime penal colony.
Manuchehr Kholiqnazarov is the Director of the Lawyers Association of Pamir (LAP), one of the few civil society organizations in GBAO that works to promote and protect human rights. As a member of several important civil society coalitions, such as the Civil Society Coalition against Torture and Impunity, the Public Council on Police Reform, and the Coalition on Housing Rights, Kholiqnazarov has assisted countless victims of human rights violations defend their rights and strengthened rule of law and democratic structures in the GBAO. Furthermore, Kholiqnazarov and LAP had been working for many years to create a platform for dialogue between state bodies and civil society institutions, where the most pressing problems of the region, including in the field of human rights were discussed.
On November 25-28, 2021, mass protests erupted in Khorog, GBAO, over the extrajudicial killing of a young man, Gulbiddin Ziyobekov. After the protests settled, Kholiqnazarov joined the “Commission 44”, consisting of representatives of local civil society and law enforcement agencies, to investigate the events. Given his professional experience, he was included in the Joint Investigation Team headed by the Prosecutor General’s Office. Despite some criticism of its passive approach, the Joint Investigation Team achieved some results, including the exhumation and re-examination of Gulbiddin Ziyobekov’s body in December 2021. In addition to his role in the Joint Investigation Team, Kholiqnazarov worked with victims of indiscriminate use of firearms by law enforcement during the protests, and in March 2022 the Civil Society Coalition against Torture and Impunity assigned four lawyers to work with the victims and their relatives.
Yet, all efforts to fight impunity for the November 2021 violence were derailed in May 2022 amid a renewed crackdown on protests in Khorog and Rushan District of GBAO. On 28 May 2022, Kholiqnazarov was arrested along with a dozen members of Commission 44 for alleged “participation in a criminal association” and “publicly calling for violent change of the constitutional order”. Their trial, with a total of 35 accused, began on 20 September 2022, and was held behind closed doors at a detention facility of the State Committee for National Security (SCNS) in Dushanbe.
On 21 October 2022, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders issued a communication to the government of Tajikistan expressing concern about the alleged arbitrary detention of Kholiqnazarov and his colleagues. However, despite all appeals, on 9 December 2022 the Supreme Court of Tajikistan sentenced Manuchehr Kholiqnazarov to 16 years in prison.
The Lawyers’ Association of Pamir (LAP) was registered as a public organization in 2010. LAP was one of the few CSOs in GBAO that worked to promote human rights and fundamental freedoms. It focused particularly on incorporating international human rights standards into national legislation and law enforcement practices, and on strengthening the principles of democratization and tolerance. In January 2021 the organization received notification of a fine for failing to register grants with the Investment Committee and a six per cent fee. The organization challenged this decision in court, arguing that they had received a foreign grant as opposed to a foreign investment and therefore were not required to pay the fee. In August 2022 the case was sent for additional review. However, LAP was liquidated at the end of 2022 without any court review – they were simply notified by the Ministry of Justice that the organization had been closed down.
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