DUSHANBE: Tajikistan on Tuesday declared the country’s top opposition party a terrorist organization after the government accused it of being behind bloody street battles that left dozens dead.
The volatile and impoverished Central Asian state’s supreme court accepted a request from the state prosecutor to close the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT). The IRPT was the only registered faith-based party in the former Soviet Union and was one of the few potential sources of genuine opposition to President Emomali Rakhmon’s two-decade rule.
The legal ban on the party is seen by analysts as the culmination of government efforts to sideline the IRPT, which was seen as an umbrella opposition bloc for moderate Muslims and secular-minded Tajiks.
“The aim of the IRPT was the overthrow of the constitutional order in Tajikistan,” said a statement from the Supreme Court, which has blacklisted it as a terrorist organization.
“In the last five years, 45 members of the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan have committed serious crimes.” The ban comes after an upsurge in violence left more than 40 people in Tajikistan this month.
The authorities said that more than 40 people had died in violence that raged in the country for nearly two weeks by the time deputy defense minister-turned-rebel-leader Abduhalim Nazarzoda was killed in a military operation.
The government accused the party via state-controlled media of plotting the attacks in the capital Dushanbe and the provincial town of Vahdat for five years.
IRPT has denied links to the violence which saw at least 13 party activists detained by police earlier this month on charges the government has yet to officially clarify.
A lawyer representing the detained IRPT activists has also been arrested on fraud and forgery charges, the government said this week.
Many independent analysts have cast doubt on the allegations levelled at the party.
Human Rights Watch, the Norwegian Helsinki Committee, and the Association for Human Rights in Central Asia this month accused the authorities of launching “a full-scale assault on dissent in Tajikistan.” The party was viewed as having been effectively banned in August — before the outbreak of the violence — when authorities sealed off its headquarters and the Justice Ministry declared its activities “illegal.”
Tajikistan shuts down Islamic opposition party
Tajikistan shuts down Islamic opposition party
Immigration agents draw guns, arrest activists following them in Minneapolis
MINNEAPOLIS: Immigration officers with guns drawn arrested some activists who were trailing their vehicles on Tuesday in Minneapolis, a sign that tensions have not eased since the departure last week of a high-profile commander.
At least one person who had an anti-ICE message on clothing was handcuffed while face-down on the ground. An Associated Press photographer witnessed the arrests.
Meanwhile, Tuesday was the deadline for the Minnesota governor, state attorney general and the mayors of Minneapolis and St. Paul to produce documents to a federal grand jury in response to a Justice Department request for records of any effort to stifle the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. Officials have denounced it as a bullying tactic.
Federal agents in the Twin Cities lately have been conducting more targeted immigration arrests at homes and neighborhoods, rather than staging in parking lots. The convoys have been harder to find and less aggressive. Alerts in activist group chats have been more about sightings than immigration-related detainments.
Several cars followed officers through south Minneapolis after there were reports of them knocking at homes. Officers stopped their vehicles and ordered activists to come out of a car at gunpoint. Agents told reporters at the scene to stay back and threatened to use pepper spray.
There was no immediate response to a request for comment from the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
A federal judge last month put limits on how officers treat motorists who are following them but not obstructing their operations. Safely following agents “at an appropriate distance does not, by itself, create reasonable suspicion to justify a vehicle stop,” the judge said. An appeals court, however, set the order aside.
Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino, who was leading an immigration crackdown in Minneapolis and other big US cities, left town last week, shortly after the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti, the second local killing of a US citizen in January.
Trump administration border czar Tom Homan was dispatched to Minnesota instead. He warned that protesters could face consequences if they interfere with officers.
Grand jury seeks communications, records
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey’s office said it was complying with a grand jury subpoena requesting documents about the city’s response to Operation Metro Surge, but it released no other details.
“We have done nothing wrong and have nothing to hide, but when the federal government weaponizes the criminal justice system against political opponents, it’s important to stand up and fight back,” spokesperson Ally Peters said.
Other state and local offices run by Democrats were given similar requests. People familiar with the matter have told the AP that the subpoenas are related to an investigation into whether Minnesota officials obstructed enforcement through public statements.
No bond for man in Omar incident
Elsewhere, a man charged with squirting apple cider vinegar on Democratic US Rep. Ilhan Omar will remain in jail. US Magistrate Judge David Schultz granted a federal prosecutor’s request to deny bond to Anthony Kazmierczak.
“We simply cannot have protesters and people — whatever side of the aisle they’re on — running up to representatives who are conducting official business, and holding town halls, and assaulting them,” Assistant US Attorney Benjamin Bejar said Tuesday.
Defense attorney John Fossum said the vinegar posed a low risk to Omar. He said Kazmierczak’s health problems weren’t being properly addressed in jail and that his release would be appropriate.
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Raza reported from Sioux Falls, South Dakota. AP reporters Ed White in Detroit and Hannah Fingerhut in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed.
