TASHKENT. July 31 (Interfax) - Two Tajik citizens have been sentenced to six years in prison each by an Uzbek court after video and audio files promoting the ideas of the Hizb ut-Tahrir religious extremist movement were confiscated from them.
"The banned materials were seized from citizens of the neighboring country as customs officers examined a Moscow-Dushanbe train," the press service of the Kashkadarya Regional Court in Uzbekistan told Interfax on Friday.
A laptop belonging to one of the detained men contained video recordings created by the Hizb ut-Tahrir religious extremist organization to promote fundamentalism ideas, as well as 130 audio files of religious content. A large number of similar items were confiscated from the second man, the press service said.
The suspects confessed during an inquiry that they had not mentioned the presence of these items in their customs declarations and had not informed customs officers of this.
It was established that they had attempted to smuggle these Hizb ut-Tahrir video and audio recordings into Tajikistan via Uzbek territory.
The Hizb ut-Tahrir movement has been branded as extremist and has been outlawed by Russia, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and some other CIS states.