UZBEKISTAN: 5-year jail term for posting Shia Muslim songs on Telegram channel

Police arrested 22-year-old Shia Muslim Sunnatillo Akparov on 23 June and took him to Kattakurgan Investigation Prison. On 7 October, Samarkand District Criminal Court jailed him for five years for distributing marthiyas (Shia musical lamentations) on a Shia Telegram channel he ran which it ruled were "materials containing a threat to public security and public order". On 3 November, Samarkand Regional Criminal Court upheld the sentence. Akparov "listened to extremist songs. The punishment for this is imprisonment," Judge Laziz Azizov told Forum 18 as the trial proceeded.