LET MY PEOPLE GO! POLITICAL PRISONERS LEFT OUT OF AMNESTY

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 DUSHANBE 001321 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/25/2019 TAGS: PGOV PHUM PINR TI SUBJECT: LET MY PEOPLE GO! POLITICAL PRISONERS LEFT OUT OF AMNESTY REF: DUSHANBE 957 CLASSIFIED BY: NECIA L. QUAST, Charge' d Affairs, EXEC, DOS. REASON: 1.4 (b),(d) ¶1. (C) SUMMARY: Though the impetus for President Rahmon's November 6 announcement of a 10,000-prisoner amnesty was the dangerous overcrowding of the country's prisons, the amnesty was also the government's latest effort to bolster its populist credentials in advance of winter electricity shortages and February Parliamentary elections. Independent newspapers and political/religious heavyweight Hoji Akbar Turajonzoda have called for the inclusion of prominent political prisoners in the amnesty, but the government has no plans to release these potential challengers. As Rahmon is unlikely to reappoint Turajonzoda to his seat in the Majlisi Milli next spring, Turajonzoda's future ambitions could be a wildcard as local analysts consider him to be the only independent political player with a national support base. END SUMMARY DEMOCRACY IN THE FALL: 10,000 AMNESTIED FROM OVERCROWDED JAILS ¶2. (C) President Rahmon's recently announced plan to release or reduce the sentences of 10,000 prisoners by the end of the year is part of a seasonal PR campaign by government officials "to show that they are real democrats" and curry popular goodwill ahead of the winter, according to Muzzafar Olimov, political analyst at the Sharq think tank. "The government always becomes democratic in the fall and winter, when the men are home [from work in Russia] and the government is weakened by energy problems. Then, in the spring, the men go off and the government flexes its muscles." Timed with Rahmon's announcement, state-controlled media broadcast footage of busloads of women freshly released from prisons. The amnesty, the government's tenth in fifteen years, officially commemorates the "year of Imam Azzam al Hanafi," the founder of the moderate Hanafi school of Islam favored by the government. Among the categories of prisoners covered in the amnesty are women, minors, males over 55, the disabled, and veterans of the civil war. The courts are screening prisoners eligible for amnesty on a case by case basis, releasing those who do not pose a threat to society, according to legal analysts at the Bureau for Human Rights NGO. Ministries and security agencies submitted to the President's Administration lists of prisoners to be excluded from the amnesty in advance of the public announcement, according to the editor of independent newspaper "Nigoh." Officials have indicated that prisoners found guilty of "murdering more than one person" will be excluded from the amnesty. ¶3. (C) In addition to bolstering the President's image, the amnesty was driven by the need to empty overcrowded prisons and make room for new criminals. The prison system is unable to feed and house its current population, while the court system is backlogged with pending cases, according to the editor of independent newspaper "Farash," Khurshed Atovulloevich. He told us Khatlon Oblast had seen a 30% increase in crime over past year, causing the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) to create a taskforce to address crimes committed by migrants returning from Russia. Jails are pushed beyond capacity because lengthy prison sentences are mandated for many petty crimes, according to the Bureau of Human Rights. The largest groups to be released through the amnesty include conscripts who refused to serve and women jailed for theft or minor drug offenses. Some journalists have reported that prisoners have paid bribes to prison officials to be included in the amnesty. Many Tajiks fear that the release of up to 10,000 prisoners will lead to a spike in crime. ¶4. (SBU) Three major independent newspapers called for the inclusion of "political prisoners" in the amnesty and published photos of jailed former Minister of Interior Yakub Salimov, former Presidential Guard Commander Gaffar Mirzoyev, and Democratic Party leader Makhmudruzi Iskandarov. These prisoners, as well as most jailed former members of the United Tajik Opposition (UTO),are not eligible for release under the amnesty law because of their convictions for offenses against the state. Independent newspapers also published comments by Majlisi Milli Deputy Hoji Akbar Turajonzoda that "it would be good" for the government to release political prisoners including Iskandarov and Salimov as "people should not be jailed for their beliefs." He also called for the release of jailed members of the Tablighi Jamaat Islamic group as "these people were only serving God." The government has not officially responded to these calls. DUSHANBE 00001321 002 OF 003 TURAJONZODA: TOO MANY POLITICALS TO LIST IN THE NEWSPAPAPER ¶5. (C) On November 16, Poloff had lunch with Turajonzoda at his compound in Vahdat, where his six children and several of his brothers also reside. Turajonzoda, a former UTO leader who, after the civil war, served seven years as Deputy Prime Minister before his 2005 appointment to the Majlisi Milli (Reftel), complained of a bad year for his cotton business and expressed bemusement that his calls for the release of political prisoners garnered so much attention. "Some nice journalist called and asked what I thought about the amnesty. I said it was good. She asked if I would like to have certain people included. I said, 'Yes, far too many to print in your newspaper.' She asked if I could provide a few names, so I named Iskandarov, Salimov, and the Tablighi Jamaat. They still have many others, many of my friends, in there." Turajonzoda said that the government responded by placing articles critical of him in pro-government publications, written under pseudonyms. Turajonzoda predicted that while many real criminals would likely be released, political prisoners and Tablighi Jamaat members would remain behind bars. PRESIDENT WANTS TO SET HIMSELF UP AS THE IMAM ¶6. (C) Turajonzoda blasted the government's religion policy, arguing that Rahmon "wants to set himself up as the Imam" while at the same time restricting religious expression. Turajonzoda, who was chief of Tajikistan's Islamic authority from 1988-1991, claimed that in 2005 he had proposed marking a year in honor of Imam Azzam al-Hanafi, but that Rahmon stole the idea in 2009 as a means to co-opt religion and take away popular support from the traditional Muslim leadership. Now Rahmon and his administration, mostly "Red Atheists," are planning the construction of the largest mosque in Central Asia and additional Islamic educational facilities under control of the state. At the same time, they cut the traditional clergy out of their initiatives. Turajonzoda said that after the government held its Conference on Imam Azzam al-Hanafi without inviting any of the country's traditional religious leaders, "or even its pocket clergy!", Dushanbe Mayor and Majlisi Milli Deputy Ubaydolloyev bragged to other Deputies that the government could pull off a religious conference without the country's religious leaders. ¶7. (C) Turajonzoda said government officials had asked him to publicly denounce the Department's 2009 Religious Freedom Report because of its criticism of the restrictive Tajik Law on Religious Practices. "I said, how can I condemn the U.S. for criticizing this law when I myself criticized it in the first place when it was discussed in the Majlisi and said it shouldn't be passed." He conceded that the law had not been heavily enforced "because if the government did try to enforce it, they would have a lot of problems." Turajonzoda noted that his granddaughter attended school wearing a hijab, despite the new school dress code banning it in educational institutions. "We say that, like in America, if a girl wants to wear the hijab, she should be able to. We also say that no one should be forced to wear it. We religious people are more tolerant than the government. We say people should have a choice, while they say that everyone should agree with them." DON'T SEND ELECTION MONITORS UNLESS THERE IS A NEW ELECTION LAW ¶8. (C) On elections, Turajonzoda believes that an opposition party could do well in a fair vote due to widespread disillusionment with the government. He doubts, however, that opposition candidates will have the opportunity to compete and predicted that in February the government would fix the vote count as in past elections. "The problems are not on election day, but during the counting of the votes. The problems are at night." When asked what the U.S. and international partners could do to improve the likelihood of free and fair elections, Turajonzoda replied, "Don't send election monitors unless the government passes a new election law that gives monitors from opposition parties access to every voting station during the vote count." DUSHANBE 00001321 003 OF 003 ¶9. (C) Turajonzoda believes the President's apparatus has already designated the winners of most of the 63 seats up for grabs in February's elections to the Lower House of Parliament, the Majlisi Nomayamdagon. "There never has been and never will be a fair election in Tajikistan." He dismissed the Islamic Renaissance Party (IRP) as ineffectual and unwilling to challenge the government. "They will keep their two seats if the government wants them to keep their two seats." Turajonzoda did not suggest a path to alternative leadership beyond repeating his past suggestion (Reftel) that the UN Security Council mandate ten-year term limits to presidents of democratic countries. He said the chances of a fair Tajik election decreased further after the recent Afghan elections which he called "A gift to authoritarians. Now they [government officials] say, 'Look, the Afghans couldn't even run a fair election with the Americans and the entire international community there. How can we be expected to do it?'" "A VERY POWERFUL, AND PERHAPS SCARY POLITICAL MOVEMENT" ¶10. (C) Turajonzoda's term as Majlisi Milli Deputy expires in spring 2010, and he believes reappointment by the President to be unlikely. "My appointment was a mistake by President Rahmon. I don't stay quiet and I can see everything that is going on. I can get into the books." Turajonzoda said that he was undecided about his future prospects, but did not plan to run for a seat in the Majlisi Namoyamdagon. Farash editor Atovulloevich notes that Turajonzoda is one of only three political figures in Tajikistan with a broad, independent power base, besides President Rahmon and Dushanbe Mayor Ubaydolloyev. The editor opined that if Turajonzoda were to combine his political base with the religious clout of his brother, Eshoni Nurridin, the most popular Imam in the country, they could create "a very powerful, and perhaps scary, political movement." He added that when he published an article by Hoji Akbar Turajonzoda, his newspaper circulation increased by several thousand copies -- something that could not be said about any other political figure. ¶11. (C) COMMENT: The government's public amnesty celebration masks the chronic failures of its judicial systems and prisons, which are so overcrowded that ten amnesties have been required since 1994. It is troubling that no international monitors have been permitted to inspect prison conditions for those remaining in confinement, including political prisoners and, more than twelve years after the end of the civil war, former members of the opposition. Turajonzoda's willingness to publicly challenge the government on these issues is not new, but he may soon be making these calls from outside the government for the first time since the end of the civil war if he is not re-appointed to his current seat. Turajonzoda is correct that current opposition political parties, including the IRPT, are ineffectual and working to curry favor with the government in hopes of being granted an extra seat or two by the President. It remains to be seen whether he will enter party politics after February, challenge the government outside of the legal political space, or observe events from the comfort of his large family compound. END COMMENT QUAST