A criminal court in Vienna on August 5 refused Tajikistan’s request to extradite Shavkat Muhammad, a member of the banned National Alliance of Tajikistan, along with his 77-year-old mother, Sharofat Sharifova, and his brother Bilolidin Sharifov. Tajik authorities accuse the three of extremism; the family calls the prosecution political.
No written ruling has been published, and the account of the hearing comes from opposition figures who were in the room.
This is the fourth refusal to come out of a single Tajik submission. In April, the Interior Ministry sent Austria’s Justice Ministry files on 18 members of exiled opposition organizations, a dossier Leila Nazgul Seiitbek examined for the Diplomat in June. On June 24, a Vienna court took up the case of Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT) member Firdavs Shukurov. The conduct Dushanbe cited in its own case materials was Shukurov holding an anti-Rahmon banner at an October 2021 demonstration in Vienna, partly documented in a YouTube video. The rally had been authorized and Shukurov held refugee status. Five days later the same court blocked the return of a 49-year-old woman wanted since 2018 for public calls to change the constitutional order.
