Tajikistan's Supreme Court has handed prison terms to three well-known public figures for writing, editing, and publishing a book that highlights some of the challenges faced by those living in the tightly controlled former Soviet republic, which the authorities ordered cleared from bookstores.
Tajik Interior Minister Ramazon Rahimov and national-security chief Saimumin Yatimov have been sitting pretty at the top of Tajikistan’s authoritarian regime. But the arrest of a businessman that positioned himself as a close friend of both is looking like a rare shot across their respective bows.