DUSHANBE, January 4, 2012, Asia-Plus  -- Five persons were arrested in Dushanbe on January 3 for membership in the outlawed extremist religious Hizb ut-Tahrir group.

The source says the detainees are men aged 30 to 38 and one of them has previous conviction for calls for extremist activity.

“Their office was located in one of apartment buildings on the Nemat Qaraboyev Street,” said the source.  “Some 100 copies of books and more than 200 leaflets with extremist content as well as 116 CDs propagating activity of the Hizb ut-Tahrir group were found in their apartment.”

Criminal proceedings have been instituted against them under the provisions of Article 307 (2) of Tajikistan’s Penal Code – organizing an extremist group; an investigation is under way.

The Tajik government banned the Hizb ut-Tahrir organization in April 2001 and since that time, hundreds of activists of this extremist group have been convicted in Tajikistan.  In 2010 alone, the law enforcement authorities of the northern province of Sughd instituted nearly 100 criminal proceedings over membership in extremist organizations and 42 of those proceedings were instituted against the Hizb ut-Tahrir activists.

The Supreme Court of Tajikistan formally labeled the banned Hizb ut-Tahrir Islamist group as an extremist organization on March 11, 2008.  The ruling followed a request submitted to the court by Tajik chief prosecutor.  Although the group has been outlawed in Tajikistan since April 2001, the ruling means even tighter restrictions on the group''s presence on the Internet and its use of media to promote its ideology.