Tajik Court Sentences Seven For Extremism

Members of Jamoat-i Tabligh in a Dushanbe court in August 2009

KHUJAND, Tajikistan -- A court in Tajikistan’s northern Sughd Province has given jail sentences to seven people for being members of the banned Islamist Jamoat-i Tabligh organization.

The convicts on February 23 each received between three and five years in jail. Jamoat-i Tabligh (Society for Spreading the Faith) has been officially banned in Tajikistan as an extremist group since 2006.

The members of the group do not consider themselves extremists, saying that they only propagate Islamic values and are not involved in politics.