Asliddin Sharipov, the brother of the director of an opposition online television station, has been located in a detention center in Tajikistan’s northern city of Khujand weeks after he was extradited from Russia.
Sharipov's relatives told RFE/RL over the weekend that a lawyer was allowed to visit Sharipov last week for the first time since he was deported to the tightly controlled former Soviet republic in early October.
According to the relatives, they have yet to be allowed to visit Sharipov.
On October 30, the Norwegian Helsinki Committee urged Tajik authorities to disclose Sharipov's exact whereabouts.
Sharipov's brother, Shavkat Muhammadi, who is the director of the opposition Payom online TV channel and currently resides in the European Union, told RFE/RL earlier that Tajik officials had refused to provide information about Sharipov's whereabouts.
Police in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg arrested Sharipov in September 2022 and extradited him to Tajikistan on October 1, 2023.
Tajik authorities have not commented on the situation around Sharipov.
Shavkat Muhammadi told the Norwegian Helsinki Committee he is convinced that Tajik authorities are persecuting his brother as a means to put pressure on him in retaliation for criticism of the government aired on Payom.net, the Tajik independent media outlet he leads in exile.
Sharipov’s lawyer in Russia, Nina Chetverikova, has said her client is wanted in Tajikistan for allegedly cooperating with a banned group and for promoting its activities online.
If convicted, Sharipov faces up to eight years in prison.
Dozens of Tajik opposition figures and activists living abroad are wanted by the Tajik authorities on charges of terrorism and extremism.
President Emomali Rahmon, who has run the Central Asian nation for almost 30 years, has been criticized by international human rights groups over his administration's disregard for independent media, religious freedoms, civil society, and political pluralism.