Shavkat Muhammadi

Affiliated media: Payom TV, Director

Incident date: October 1, 2023

Attack type:

• Pressure on a media worker via judicial and/or economic pressure on relatives and loved ones

Who attacked: Authorities

Source: Mediazona. Central Asia

Location: Tajikistan, Dushanbe

Additional information:

Russia expelled Asliddin Sharifov, brother of Shavkat Muhammadi, director of the opposition media outlet Payom TV, to Tajikistan. The extradition took place on October 1, but it became known only the day before, on Monday, October 9. The brother of the exiled man told Radio Ozodi that the country’s authorities do not disclose his relative’s whereabouts. According to the relatives, the Tagilstroyevsky District Prosecutor’s Office in Nizhny Tagil, Sverdlovsk Oblast, concluded that Asliddin Sharifov is suspected of cooperation with banned organisations and their propaganda through the media and the internet. In Tajikistan, this offence (Part 2 of Article 307 (3) of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Tajikistan) is punishable by five to eight years of imprisonment.