Breakthrough for Alex Sodiqov: Free from detention but unable to return to Canada #FreeAlexSodiqov

#FreeAlexSodiqov campaign finally has some good news: The doctoral student is released and reunited with his wife and child.

Alex Sodiqov and his wife Musharraf
Alex Sodiqov and his wife Musharraf

Alex Sodiqov and his wife Musharraf

Tajikistan security officials released Alex Sodiqov on Tuesday. The doctoral student must remain in the country as a condition of his release.

Sodiqov was arrested in June while conducting academic interviews in a remote region of Tajikistan. He was detained for over a month on allegations of treason and espionage.


Edward Schatz, Sodiqov’s professor at the University of Toronto, told the Toronto Star that Sodiqov is at home with his wife and child, but he must remain in the country as a person of interest in an investigation of “high treason.”

“He doesn’t seem to have been mistreated, which is great,” Schatz told the Star.

The release was welcome news for those involved in the #FreeAlexSodiov campaign. Over 3,000 academics and scholars signed a petition calling on the Tajikistan government to release Sodiqov. The case was also of serious concern for Amnesty International and the United States Mission to the the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

Read my previous posts on Sodiqov’s arrest (here) and the efforts to release him (here).

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