DUSHANBE, April 21, 2016, Asia-Plus – Radio Liberty’s Tajik Service reports an imam of mosque and four other residents of the northern province of Sughd have been jailed for being followers of a banned branch of Islam.

A judge in a court in Sughd’s Bobojonghafourov district, Boir Zoirzoda, told RFE/RL’s Tajik Service imam of one of local mosques Hamid Karimov had been sentenced to eight years in prison for inciting religious hatred and propagating the ideas of the banned Salafi brand of Islam.

Four other local Salafi followers were sentenced to seven years each, Zoirzoda said.

The Salafi branch of Islam was branded as extremist and banned in Tajikistan in 2009.

Salafists follow a strict form of Sunni Islam and do not recognize other branches of Islam, such as Shi''a Islam and Sufism.

The overwhelming majority of Tajiks are followers of Hanafia, a liberal branch of Sunni Islam.