Twelve civil society organisations, including Lawyers for Lawyers, have called for the release of Tajik lawyer Buzurgmehr Yorov. In a separate statement, a coalition of bar associations have similarly expressed concern and urged the Tajik authorities to uphold their obligations under intenational human rights law. Download the civil society statement and bar association declaration or read on below.
Tajikistan: Lawyer Wrongfully Held for a Decade
Free Buzurgmehr Yorov and All Others Held for Exercising their Human Rights
Tajikistan’s authorities have wrongfully imprisoned a human rights lawyer for 10 years for exercising his human rights, 12 organizations, including Lawyers for Lawyers, said today. Buzurgmehr Yorov is serving a 23-year prison sentence because of his work representing political opposition leaders.
Tajikistan’s authorities should quash Yorov’s conviction and sentence and release him immediately. The authorities should also release all other prisoners, including lawyers, arbitrarily and unjustifiably detained for peacefully exercising their human rights.
Yorov, 54, earned a reputation as one of the most fearless human rights lawyers in Tajikistan by taking on high-profile legal cases, representing individuals prosecuted by the government on politically motivated charges. In early September 2015, Yorov began representing several members of the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan. The party had been one of the few officially registered opposition parties in the country, but it was labeled a terrorist organization and banned in September 2015.
On September 28, 2015, police arrested Yorov, raided his home and legal office without a warrant, and ultimately charged him with forgery, fraud, “arousing national, racial, local or religious hostility,” and extremism. The charges appear to have been prompted by an interview Yorov gave shortly before his arrest in which he announced that one of his clients had been tortured in pre-trial detention and called for a coalition of lawyers to join him in representing the detained Islamic Renaissance Party members.
Yorov was held in pre-trial detention for eight months, where he was beaten and held in solitary confinement. On October 6, 2016, after a trial riddled with due process violations, he was sentenced to 23 years in prison. Since then, his sentence has twice been shortened under mass amnesties. However, authorities have repeatedly brought new, trumped-up charges against him—most recently in July 2023. The ensuing convictions have extended his sentence and pushed his expected release date to September 2043, by which time he will be 72 years old.
Tajikistan: Lawyer wrongfully held for a decade – Free Buzurgmehr Yorov
