DUSHANBE, March 20, Asia-Plus  -- People of Tajikistan should not destabilize the political situation in the country, known Tajik public figure and prominent filmmaker Davlat Khudonazarov said in an interview with Asia-Plus by phone. 

According to him, those politicians who want to initiate a protest action in Khorog on April 8 just manipulate hot temper of the Pamirs mountain-dwellers for achieving any their own goals.  

“Tajikistanis now should focus more on tackling socioeconomic problems facing the country,” said Davlat Khudonazarov.     

We will recall that the Social-Democratic Party (SDPT) intends to hold a demonstration in Khorog, Gorno Badakhshan on April 8 to protest ignorance of Constitution’s regulations.  This was remarked at a press conference hosted by the SDPT in Dushanbe on March 18.  During the press conference, it was noted that the SDPT regional organization for Gorno Badakhshan made a special statement on this subject on March 13.    

Khudonazarov was a prominent filmmaker when he was elected People’s Deputy from Tajikistan to the Supreme Court of the USSR in 1988.  He was elected the chairman of the USSR Union of Cinematographers in 1989.  He was the chief peace-negotiator between the army and the demonstrators in the February 1990 Dushanbe riots.  Davlat Khudonazarov ran against Rahmon Nabiyev in the presidential elections in November 1991 as the candidate of opposition coalition. He received 35% of the popular vote.  Khudonazarov worked as a peacemaker during the Tajik civil war (1992-1997).  In 1994-95 he was Peace Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace, and Galina Starovoitova Fellow in Human Rights and Conflict Resolution at Kennan Institute of the Woodrow Wilson Center in 2005.