DUSHANBE, July 8, 2013, Asia-Plus – Two officers from the Interior Ministry visa and registration department (OVIR) came to Asia-Plus to make inquiries about Ms. Olga Tutubalina, the editor of the Asia-Plus newspaper.

Since she is now on vacation, the newspaper’s lawyer Shuhrat Qudratov talked to them.

One of the officers, who introduced himself as Jamshed Imomov, said they would like to talk to Olga Tutubalina in order to check the legality of her stay in Tajikistan.

“According to data we have, Ms. Olga Tutubalina is the citizen of the Russian Federation and she stay in Tajikistan without registration,” Imomov said, noting that inspection is carried out by order of the Ministry of Interior (MoI).

Meanwhile, Ms. Tutubalina told Asia-Plus’s reported by phone that she has dual citizenship in Tajikistan and the Russian Federation.

We will recall that Tajik Writers’ Union, Tajik Painters’ Union, Tajik Composers’ Union, Tajik Architects’ Union, the Academy of Sciences of Tajikistan and Candidate of the Sciences in Medicine, Ms. Dilbar Abdiyeva have filed a lawsuit against Ms. Olga Tutubalina in the Dushanbe Economic Court, asking for 200,000 somoni as compensation for moral damage and demanding public apology.

The case stems from the article by Olga Tutubalina published in the newspaper on May 29 this year.  In her article about Tajik intelligentsia, Ms. Tutubalina used citation from Lenin’s letter to Maxim Gorky of September 15, 1919, “The intellectual forces of the workers and peasants are growing and getting stronger in their fight to overthrow the bourgeoisie and their accomplices, the educated classes, the lackeys of capital, who consider themselves the brains of the nation.  In fact they are not its brains but its shit.”

Plaintiffs say the article by Olga Tutubalina insulted honor and dignity as well as reputation of a large social group of people and caused moral damage to them.  Besides, they consider that Ms. Tutubalina distorted Lenin’s words in her article.