Valоmаti Ibrahimzoda, the wife of Rakhmatullo Rajab, detained in solitary confinement for 2 months, made a video statement in Tajik and Russian languages, demanding the immediate release of her husband from the punishment cell and termination of torture and ill-treatment. In a video recorded on 24th of Мay 2019 in Dushanbe, she said she was going on a hunger strike and intends to keep it until her husband was released from the punishment cell. He was transferred there on the 20th of May for listening to radio messages about the suppression of the uprisal in the Wahdat correctional facility and thus, allegedly, according to the guards involved in the Wahdat riot.

Valomati Ibrahimzoda called on all international human rights organizations, in particular on Freedom Now and the international Red Cross, to pay attention to the critical condition of political prisoner Rakhmatullo Rajab and provide him and his family the necessary legal support and assistance.

She stated, that a few days ago the head of the correctional Idibek Muhtojzoda cancelled the previously scheduled date with her husband, which was to be held on May the 25th, and postponed it for two months. Though Rakhmatullo Rajab is serving a 28-year sentence in prison No.3/1in the centre of Dushanbe, his wife was refused to deliver him medicines and food. Valomati Ibrahimzoda says that her husband needs medical assistance and normal food because he recently suffered a stroke.

Co — prisoners informed her, that Rahmatullo Rajab was in a life-threatening condition. After tortures, his body is covered with wounds, bruises, and scars. He is half paralyzed and remains detained in a punishment cell, sitting on the cold bare concrete, deprived of any limited rights that enjoy all other prisoners.

The woman states, that after she appealed to the head of the correctional, on the 23d of May her husband for the first time phoned her from prison and urged her not to do anything. However, by his tense unnatural tone, the woman realized that he was following dictation in the presence of guards. Her suspicions were proved by co-prisoners, who invoked her to urgently take all possible measures to save the life of Rahmatullo Rajab, proving that the previous call was made by administration orders.

His daughter Nilufar Rahmatullo is also ready to join the hunger strike of his wife.

The name of Rakhmatullo Rajab is already on the list of 11 Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan leaders, petitioned on May 21, 2019, by Freedom Now human rights organization to the Working group of the UN Human Rights Committee with a pledge for immediate release.

After ISIS supporters executed several members of the Tajik opposition in the Wahdat penal colony, Freedom Now proclaims the leaders of the Islamic Revival Party of Tajikistan, imprisoned in Tajikistan being in serious danger.

Chairman of the National Alliance of Tajikistan, leader of the Islamic Revival Party of Tajikistan Muhiddin Kabiri in his video address on social networks on May 22 expressed serious concern that the lives of political prisoners — the leaders of the Tajik opposition — are under real threat, both from the prison authorities and from some radical prisoners. «Everything is being done they do not survive up to the end of imprisonment,» — said Muhiddin Kabiri.

Rahmatullo Rajab is 60 years old, he is an economist, a member of the Supreme Political Council of the Islamic Revival Party of Tajikistan. Rahmatullo Rajab was detained on September 16, 2015, and convicted in a closed trial without a lawyer on forged charges of involvement in the so-called rebellion of General Abduhalim Nazarzoda. Rahmatullo Rajab categorically rejects the charges against him.