{"id":6491,"date":"2022-11-19T10:00:31","date_gmt":"2022-11-19T07:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/?p=6491"},"modified":"2022-12-19T21:33:18","modified_gmt":"2022-12-19T18:33:18","slug":"tajikistan-should-release-ailing-jehovahs-witness-from-prison-rubio-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/tajikistan-should-release-ailing-jehovahs-witness-from-prison-rubio-says\/","title":{"rendered":"Tajikistan should release ailing Jehovah\u2019s Witness from prison, Rubio says"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/tajikistans-ban-of-jehovahs-witnesses-illegal-un-human-rights-committee-says\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Shamil Khakimov<\/a><\/strong>, a Jehovah\u2019s Witness jailed in\u00a0Tajikistan, gained new support when Sen. Marco Rubio, Florida Republican, and Nury Turkel, chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, took to social media to advocate for his release.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_6492\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-6492\" style=\"width: 1024px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-6492 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/Shamil-Khakimov.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" srcset=\"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/Shamil-Khakimov.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/Shamil-Khakimov-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/Shamil-Khakimov-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-6492\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Shamil Khakimov<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Tajikistan\u00a0is a central Asian country of 9.8 million people, with 98% of the population identifying themselves as Muslim.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201c<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/tajikistans-ban-of-jehovahs-witnesses-illegal-un-human-rights-committee-says\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Shamil Khakimov<\/a><\/strong>, a Jehovah\u2019s Witness in #Tajikistan, is serving 5 yrs in prison for peacefully sharing his faith,\u201d Mr. Rubio tweeted. \u201cThis is an assault on religious freedom &amp; has caused Shamil\u2018s health to deteriorate. He must be immediately released &amp; reunited w his family.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Mr. Turkel said Mr. <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/tajikistans-ban-of-jehovahs-witnesses-illegal-un-human-rights-committee-says\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Shamil Khakimov<\/a><\/strong> \u201chealth situation remains dire as Tajik authorities continue to unjustly detain him and deny him the medical treatment he needs. He should be released immediately so he can receive lifesaving care.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Mr. <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/tajikistans-ban-of-jehovahs-witnesses-illegal-un-human-rights-committee-says\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Shamil Khakimov<\/a><\/strong>, 71, is a widower who was jailed in 2019 and convicted of \u201cinciting religious hatred,\u201d according to Tajikistan\u2018s criminal code. He suffers from heart problems, chronic sciatica and circulatory problems in his lower limbs. He\u2018s undergone two blood clot surgeries in his legs, but some wounds haven\u2019t healed and he has early stages of gangrene in his left foot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Shamil Khakimov, a Jehovah\u2019s Witness jailed in\u00a0Tajikistan, gained new support when Sen. Marco Rubio, Florida Republican, and Nury Turkel, chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, took to social media to advocate for&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6492,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tajikistan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6491"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6491\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6494,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6491\/revisions\/6494"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}