Jun 19
2018

Why is Tajikistan imprisoning journalists?

All-Party Parliamentary Group Event

Venue:  House of Commons, UK Parliament, Committee Room 16
When:  Wednesday 20 June 2018, 2–3pm

In recent years, there has been a notable increase in the repression of civil society, academia and the media in Tajikistan.  Extensive new restrictions have been placed on NGOs and on freedom of speech and association.  Several prominent Tajik scholars have been detained and/or forced to flee the country.  The independent media has been particularly targeted with the imprisonment or threat of imprisonment of a number of prominent journalists.  These include Khayrullo Mirsaidov, a journalist and satirist who has been detained since December 2017 after publishing an open letter to the President which highlighted local corruption.  This APPG event will discuss how and why Tajikistan has become a more repressive and hear directly about the case Mirsaidov and other journalists like him. The two speakers are Steve Swerdlow, Central Asia researcher of Human Rights Watch, and Michael Andersen, a Danish journalist who is a colleague and friend of Khayrullo Mirsaidov.

Chair: Nigel Mills MP

Speakers:

  • Michael Anderson (Independent Journalist)
  • Steve Swerdlow (Human Rights Watch)

This event is organised in partnership with the Central Asia Political Exiles (CAPE) project at the University of Exeter, the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Human Rights, and the APPG Tajikistan.