Last week, Polish authorities deported a 35-year-old citizen of Tajikistan. This was reported on Monday by Abdusattor Boboev, head of the Committee for the Protection of Political Hostages and Prisoners in Tajikistan, to Azda TV. According to information received by Azda TV, his name is Farukh Ikromov, and he is 35 years old. “In 2016, […]
Last week, Polish authorities deported a 35-year-old citizen of Tajikistan.
This was reported on Monday by Abdusattor Boboev, head of the Committee for the Protection of Political Hostages and Prisoners in Tajikistan, to Azda TV.
According to information received by Azda TV, his name is Farukh Ikromov, and he is 35 years old.
“In 2016, he applied for asylum in Poland along with his wife and children. However, for 7 years of living in Poland, he was always denied asylum. In the fall of 2023, fearing deportation to Tajikistan, Ikromov fled to Germany, where he applied for asylum,” said Boboev.
The Azda TV interlocutor also added that a few months later, at the end of January 2024, Ikromov was detained in Germany and deported to Poland under the Dublin Agreement. Since then, Farukh Ikromov has been held in a closed refugee camp.
The last time Ikromov contacted his friends by phone was on April 10, when he reported that he had been photographed and did not know for what purpose. The day after that, his phone was turned off, and he stopped communicating. However, on the evening of April 11, people who were with Ikromov in the refugee camp contacted his friends and reported that he had been taken to an unknown location.
Farukh Ikromov’s lawyer contacted the Polish Border Guard immediately after his disappearance. They informed him that his client was at Krakow Airport.
Azda TV’s investigation established that on April 13, a small Polish Air Force plane on flight PLF044 departed from Krakow to Tbilisi, and after a brief stop, continued its flight to Tajikistan, landing at Dushanbe International Airport.
It is unknown whether Farukh Ikromov was on board this plane, but the timing of his disappearance coincides with this flight. It is also unclear whether he was alone on this flight or if there were other individuals with him.
Last year, the Polish Border Guard carried out a similar flight to Tajikistan, during which several Tajik citizens were deported, including Sorbon Abdurakhimzoda.
Azda TV also received information that a Tajik youth with Kyrgyz citizenship was deported from Poland to Kyrgyzstan in early April, but nothing is known about his fate so far.
In recent years, Poland has deported or extradited members of “Group 24” Mustafa Khayotov, Sorbon Abdurakhimzoda, and several other citizens of Tajikistan.
Farhod Odinaev, a defender of the rights of migrants and refugees, states that Tajik citizens are being deported from Europe for two main reasons:
1- negligence regarding documentation;
2- the expansion of cooperation between the Tajik embassy in Germany and the migration authorities of Germany and Poland, especially after the appointment of Imomuddin Sattorov as Tajikistan’s ambassador to Germany.
According to the human rights defender, the Ambassador of Tajikistan to Germany Imomuddin Sattorov plays a very important role in the operation to deport Tajik citizens from Europe, and it was after his appointment to Germany that the expulsion of opposition activists increased. Odinaev believes that it was Imomuddin Sattorov, while serving as Tajikistan’s ambassador to Russia, who was behind the deportation of Izzat Amon, Karomat Sharipov, and other Tajik activists to Russia. Now he is repeating the same practice in Europe.
In recent years, the number of deportations of Tajik refugees from European countries has increased, raising concerns among the Tajik opposition. A year ago, Germany deported Abdullohi Shamsiddin and Bilol Kurbanaliev, who were later sentenced to 7 and 10 years in prison, respectively, in Tajikistan. The authorities of Austria deported Khizbullo Shovalizoda, who was later sentenced to 20 years in prison in Tajikistan. Earlier, Lithuania deported a Tajik refugee, and recently a political activist, Sulayman Davlatov, was arrested in that country, as law enforcement agencies considered him a threat to the national security of the country. He now also faces deportation to Tajikistan.