Alisher Tursunov, a prominent religious blogger known online as Mubashshir Ahmad, has been deported from Turkey to Uzbekistan after his arrest. The Uzbek Ministry of Internal Affairs reported the news.
According to the ministry, Tursunov, who was subject to an international arrest warrant, was apprehended by Turkish authorities on May 8th and deported on May 10th. The statement alleges that information disseminated on platforms and social media pages associated with Tursunov contained content deemed illegal under Uzbekistani law, following expert analysis.
Consequently, criminal charges have been filed against him under articles 244-1 (Production, storage, distribution, or display of materials posing a threat to public safety and order) and 244-3 (Illegal production, storage, import, or distribution of materials of religious content) of the Uzbek Criminal Code. He is currently in pre-trial detention.
The ongoing investigation continues. It’s noteworthy that Ahmad was initially detained by Turkish police at his residence on December 28, 2023, and held at the Binikliç deportation center in Istanbul’s Çatalca district before his release on February 21, 2024.
In August 2023, Mubashshir Ahmad announced the closure of his Uzbekistani-based website, “Azon.uz.” He subsequently launched Azon Global in November, operating in Uzbek, Russian, English, and Turkish.