DUSHANBE -- A son of Tajik opposition politician Shamsiddin Saidov has been extradited to Tajikistan from Germany and is currently in a detention center in Dushanbe.
Abdullo Shamsiddin's wife, Sumai Pirova, told RFE/RL on March 7 that her husband called her a day earlier and told her that he is currently in the custody of the State Committee for National Security. Pirova said her husband did not say what charges he faces.
The Tajik interior minister and prosecutor-general said earlier that they had no information about Shamsiddin.
In December, the National Alliance of Tajikistan (PMT), which unites several opposition groups in exile, said Shamsiddin was facing possible deportation to Tajikistan, where he will most likely face arbitrary arrest and torture.
The 32-year-old's father, Shamsiddin Saidov, is a member of the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT). In January 2018, he was sentenced in absentia in Tajikistan to 15 years in prison on extremism charges and is currently residing in the European Union.
Saidov had said that Germany may deport his son, who has lived in Germany since 2009, due to his failure to reregister with the country’s migration authorities on time.
The IRPT said at the time that the decision to deport Shamsiddin might have been caused by his providing wrong data to the immigration service.
The IRPT, long an influential party with representatives in the government and parliament, was labeled a terrorist group and banned in 2015.
Dozens of IRPT officials and supporters have been prosecuted and many of them imprisoned, drawing criticism from human rights groups.
Tajik authorities have been criticized for cracking down on dissent for years.
In 2014, another opposition movement, Group 24, was labeled as terrorist and extremist and banned. In March 2015, the movement's founder, Umarali Quvatov, was assassinated in Istanbul.