TAJikisTAN
© Amnesty International (Photo: Cesar Balan)
groWiNg up WiThouT DAD NOzANIN, A LITTLE GIRL FROM TAJIkISTAN, IS GROWING Up WITHOUT HER DAD. HE WAS ARRESTED JUST AFTER SHE WAS BORN, AND HAS BEEN IN pRISON EVER SINCE. HER FAMILY IS ONE OF THE FEW THAT DARE SpEAk OUT ABOUT TORTURE AND UNFAIR TRIALS IN THE COUNTRY.
iN shoCk Nasim’s father told Amnesty that when he saw his son “he was a complete stranger. I said, ‘Nasim, what happened?’ He didn’t respond at all and seemed to be in shock.” The first lawyer to see the defendants on 16 September 2011 had to turn away because their injuries were so horrible. He later told their parents that their sons’ bodies “looked like mincemeat”, and to contact human rights organizations. But a judge who was present ignored Nasim’s injuries. When Nozanin was six months old, on 7 March 2012, her dad and the other four men were sentenced to between 10 and 12 years in prison for committing “bodily harm leading to death”. The Supreme Court upheld
their sentences in May 2012, and the five men are still in prison. Nasim still suffers from the injuries he got during his “interrogation” in September 2011.
uNfAir TriAl Amnesty believes that the murder investigation and the evidence against the men were severely flawed. The police reportedly ill-treated two witnesses to force them to incriminate the five men. One witness also said a local government employee offered him bribes to retract his testimony against the people he believed were the real perpetrators. We also believe that the men received an unfair trial. Among other issues, the court ignored alibis and allegations that the evidence might have been obtained through torture or other ill-treatment.
© Private
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ozanin was only four days old when her father, Nasim Salimzoda, was arrested. The police picked him up, seemingly at random, along with four other men in their village, Khojai Alo, in the remote Sughd region of Tajikistan, on 11 September 2011. They accused them of murdering a military employee. Two days later the five men, all in their twenties, “confessed” to murder, reportedly after being tortured by police. The father of one of the young men visited the police station and said he heard his son screaming. A police officer told him: “That’s not your son − those are other people’s screams.”
speAkiNg ouT Meanwhile, Nozanin is growing up without her dad. She will be two years old in September, and lives with her mother and grandparents. They are tending their garden, looking after each other, and getting on with ordinary life. Theirs is just one of many families in Tajikistan affected by torture. But they are among the few extraordinary ones that dare write petitions to the authorities and speak publicly about what happened to Nasim. They continue to seek justice for him, despite intimidation and
harassment from the police and sometimes also pressure from other family members to keep quiet.
ACT NoW
Send a letter to help Nasim and his co-defendants get justice. All the information you need is on page 22-23.
Top: Nozanin lives with her mother and grandparents in a remote part of Tajikistan. She recently received children’s books from Amnesty members overseas, who sent parcels to show solidarity with families of torture victims across Central Asia. Below: Nasim Salimzoda, Nozanin’s dad.
11 Wire [ Jul/Aug 2013 ]