Shukhrat Kudratov
In 2011, Shukhrat Kudratov was named Human Rights Defender Of The Year in Tajikistan by the local Bureau for Human Rights and Rule of Law.
Shukhrat Kudratov is a leading lawyer for the independent news agency “Asia-Plus”, and Deputy Director of the opposition Social-Democratic Party in Tajikistan. He is one of few lawyers in Tajikistan who defends opposition activists, victims of police torture, and those accused of “religious extremism”.
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.
