Authorities in Tajikistan have released a journalist whose detention had been condemned by international media-rights groups, RFE/RL's Tajik Service reported. Jumaboy Tolibov was freed December 16, two months after the Tajik Supreme Court initially ordered his release. Speaking to RFE/RL, Tolibov thanked rights groups that had voiced concern about his prison term.
Tolibov was jailed for two years in July for drunken behavior and abusing his position as a local government advisor. Tolibov had always maintained his innocence, saying he was being punished for writing articles about local government corruption.
"I have not committed any crime. I have only gone through all of this because of the articles I wrote defending the people's rights," he said.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Tolibov, an independent journalist from northern Tajikistan, was detained on April 24 this year in the capital of Dushanbe, at the direction of Ayni district prosecutor Sabit Azamov. Tolibov was later transferred to the Ayni district remand center in the northern region of Sogd.
On July 28, a Shahristan District Court judge sentenced Tolibov to two years in a prison colony on charges of hooliganism, trespassing, and abusing his office as a local government administrator, according to local and international reports.
Nuriddin Karshiboyev, head of the National Association of Independent Media of Tajikistan (NANSMIT), a press freedom group, said his organisation believed the charges were fabricated in retaliation for Tolibov's published work.
Tolibov, who is also chairman of the legal department in Ayni's local government, wrote commentaries in the ruling party newspaper Minbar i Halq and the parliamentary newspaper Sadoi Mardum that were highly critical of the district prosecutor's office. In three articles published in late 2004, Tolibov alleged that Azamov assaulted him and reproached local authorities for refusing to investigate. Tolibov said the attack occurred when he was seeking information from the prosecutor's office earlier in the year.
The articles included "A barbarian prosecutor" and "Who supports a barbarian prosecutor?" in Minbar i Halq, and "Who will protect us?" in Sadoi Mardum.
Marat Mamadshoyev, a NANSMIT correspondent who monitored the 13-day trial, said the verdict came in the face of contradictory witness statements. Mamadshoyev also said several key witnesses who allegedly filed complaints against Tolibov were not present in court and instead submitted written testimony, according to CPJ.
After the defence appealed, the Supreme Court partially overturned the conviction and ordered Tolibov's release. In its October 11 ruling, the Supreme Court threw out Tolibov's conviction for trespassing and abuse of office, and it reduced a conviction on hooliganism to a lesser charge of insult. The court also reduced Tolibov's punishment from two years in prison to one year of corrective labour; the court accepted the six month imprisonment already served as the equivalent of a year of corrective labour.
But the prosecutor general's office in the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, moved immediately to block Tolibov's release. Under the Tajik Code of Criminal Procedure, the prosecutor can suspend implementation of a Supreme Court decision by filing a letter of appeal. Sabbargun Kurbanova, spokesman for the prosecutor general's office, told CPJ that it wanted to "check the rationale behind Tolibov's release."
