Gulchekhra Kholmatova
Gulchekhra Kholmatova is a human rights defender and researcher at Law and Prosperity. The organisation is a member of the Coalition of Civil Society Against Torture and Impunity in the Republic of Tajikistan. Gulchekhra Kholmatova provides legal assistance to the victims of torture and ill-treatment, documents cases of torture, drafts analytical materials, monitors trials. She also accompanies relatives of torture victims to meetings with representatives of state bodies. Gulchehra Kholmatova is a lawyer and a member of the Union of Lawyers of the Republic of Tajikistan.
Human rights defenders in Tajikistan work in conditions of long-term unchanged political power and absence of political pluralism. In 2015 the Islamic party of Tajikistan was banned as a terrorist organisation and 20 of its members were arrested. The same year three human rights lawyers who tried to provide legal assistance to the arrested members of the party were arrested on the trumped-up charges of fraud, that had been used previously on many occasions to silence the lawyers and human rights defenders working on sensitive cases.
