Russian citizen Oqil Sharifov, who returned to his home in ex-Soviet Tajikistan on vacation earlier this year, now won’t be going back to Russia until next year after a local court sentenced the 31-year-old man to a year in jail for filming what he determined to be local police violating the right to wear the Islamic hijab.
February footage of police arresting two hijab-sporting women quickly gathered traction on the Russian social network Odnoklassniki and YouTube, angering ordinary Tajiks in the majority Muslim country and earning the attention of local authorities accused of launching a crusade against Islam.
The man was charged with “provocation of enmity based on nationalism, regionalism, and religion” and sentenced on May 26.
Sharifov's lawyer noted that the prosecution justified the arrests by the police in connection with “cultural events” taking place in the city at the time.
Sharifov is one of hundreds of thousands of Tajiks who travel to Russia seasonally in search of work. Like many others, he managed to gain citizenship there.
His home city Isfara is located in northern Tajikistan and is known as one of the most devout areas in Central Asia.
A few days after returning from vacation he made the following video using his smartphone.
One of the detained women says on camera that they are being detained for wearing the hijab.
Sharifov comments while filming:
Tajik YouTube users were more concerned with the crackdown on religion than the fate of the citizen journalist.
Lyudmila Azanova commented:
Indeed, former interior ministry colonel Gulmurod Halimov, who shocked the world by defecting from Tajikistan to join ISIS in Syria last year cited the government's aggressively secular policies against Islam as the main reason for his defection.
source : abna24.com
