Page 50 - bne IntelliNews monthly magazine May 2024

50 I Eurasia bne May 2024
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Foreign Minister of Tajikistan Sirojiddin Muhriddin hold a meeting on the sidelines of the CIS Foreign Ministers Council meeting. / Photo: mfa_russia
Tajik foreign minister hits out at Russia’s apparent torturing of alleged terrorist
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Tajikistan's foreign minister on April 12 hit out at Russia’s apparent torturing of the mostly Tajik suspects in last month’s terrorist attack on an outer Moscow concert hall that took the lives of more than 140 people.
Sirojiddin Muhriddin, speaking
in Minsk at a meeting of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), also criticised what he described as a media campaign to slander Tajiks. His comments came amid more reports that Tajikistan – the economy of which is heavily reliant on remittances sent home by migrant workers employed in Russia – is seriously concerned by the number of Tajiks who have responded
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to the Russian backlash against Central Asian migrants in the wake of the terror attack by heading home.
After the attack on Crocus City Hall on March 22, several Tajiks were arrested and showed signs of physical abuse when they appeared in Basmanny District Court in Moscow. The accused included four
alleged gunmen who had bruised and swollen faces. They also showed other signs of having been severely beaten. There were unconfirmed reports that one of those detained had his ear cut off during his arrest.
"The use of torture in the form of bodily mutilation is unacceptable,"
“The use of torture in the form of bodily mutilation is unacceptable. The price of confessions extracted in this way is well known to everyone.”