USCIRF a Commissioner Nury Turkel announced on February 24, 2021, that he will advocate for 70-year-old Brother Shamil Khakimov as part of USCIRF’s Religious Prisoners of Conscience Project. In the announcement, Commissioner Turkel explains: “Since 2019, this ailing, elderly man has been languishing in a decrepit and overcrowded prison on a bogus seven-and-a-half year prison sentence. This term could very well represent a death sentence for a man wrongly imprisoned for peacefully practicing his religious beliefs as a Jehovah’s Witness.”

Brother Khakimov, a widower, is one of 24 Witnesses in northern Tajikistan interrogated by officers of the Department of Organized Crime Control (DOCC) in January and February 2019. The DOCC arrested Brother Khakimov and interrogated him about the structure of the organization and how he became one of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Brother Khakimov was detained for eight hours and deprived of needed medical care for a recent surgery. He also suffers from high blood pressure. When the police finally took him home, they seized his electronic devices, Bible, copies of our Bible study publications, and passport. Without his passport, Brother Khakimov was unable to access his pension to continue his postoperative medical care.

On February 28, 2019, a judge at the Khujand City Court ruled to place Brother Khakimov in pretrial detention. His pretrial detention term was extended three times. He remained in detention for the duration of the investigation and trial.

On September 10, 2019, he was convicted and sentenced to seven and a half years in prison. However, on July 4, 2020, the prison administration informed Brother Khakimov that Tajikistan’s amnesty law would be applied to his sentence, reducing his term by two years, three months, and ten days. He is now scheduled to be released on May 16, 2024.

We know Jehovah will continue helping our brothers and sisters to patiently and joyfully endure.—Psalm 20:2.