Otakhon Latifi (Отахон Латифи) (1936 - September 22, 1998) was a noted journalist and politician from
TajikistanTajikistan , officially the Republic of Tajikistan , is a mountainous landlocked country in Central Asia. Afghanistan borders it to the south, Uzbekistan to the west, Kyrgyzstan to the north, and People's Republic of China to the east...
.
He was born in the town of Pendjikent. Under the
Soviet UnionThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
, he was both
PravdaPravda was a leading newspaper of the Soviet Union and an official organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party between 1912 and 1991....
and
Izvestiya's correspondent in Tajikistan at various times. He also served as head of the Union of Journalists of Tajikistan.
Latifi branched into politics in 1989, becoming deputy chairman of the Tajik Council of Ministers.
Otakhon Latifi (Отахон Латифи) (1936 - September 22, 1998) was a noted journalist and politician from
TajikistanTajikistan , officially the Republic of Tajikistan , is a mountainous landlocked country in Central Asia. Afghanistan borders it to the south, Uzbekistan to the west, Kyrgyzstan to the north, and People's Republic of China to the east...
.
He was born in the town of Pendjikent. Under the
Soviet UnionThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
, he was both
PravdaPravda was a leading newspaper of the Soviet Union and an official organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party between 1912 and 1991....
and
Izvestiya's correspondent in Tajikistan at various times. He also served as head of the Union of Journalists of Tajikistan.
Latifi branched into politics in 1989, becoming deputy chairman of the Tajik Council of Ministers. He became involved in the peace process that followed the country's bloody post-independence civil war. In 1992, he became Deputy Prime Minister, as part of Tajikistan's national reconciliation government.
Over time, Latifi became a prominent opposition figure, as a senior member in the
United Tajik OppositionThe United Tajik Opposition was an alliance of democratic, liberal and Islamist forces that fought in the Tajik Civil War from 1992 to 1997 against administration of President Emomali Rahmonov....
. This led to a period in exile in
TehranTehran is the capital and largest city of Iran, and the administrative center of Tehran Province. Tehran is a sprawling city at the foot of the Tochal mountain range with an immense network of highways unparalleled in Western Asia...
and
MoscowMoscow is the capital and the largest city of Russia. It is also the largest metropolitan area in Europe, and ranks among the largest urban areas in the world. Moscow is a major political, economic, cultural, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the world, a...
between 1992 and 1997. While in Moscow, on August 4, 1994, Latifi was badly beaten outside his Moscow apartment, and key documents relating to the peace process were stolen.
On his return to Tajikistan in September 1997, he chaired the panel for legal issues under the National Reconciliation Commission, a role which he continued until his death. On September 22, 1998, at around 8am, Latifi was shot at point blank range outside his apartment in Dushanbe.
His murder sparked condemnation from both the government and opposition, United Nations Secretary-General
Kofi AnnanKofi Atta Annan, Honorary GCMG is a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations from 1 January 1997 to 1 January 2007. Annan and the United Nations were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize.-Early years and family:Kofi Annan was born in the...
and the non-government organization
Human Rights WatchHuman Rights Watch is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Its headquarters are in New York City and it has offices in Berlin, Brussels, Chicago, Geneva, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Moscow, Paris, San Francisco, Tokyo, Toronto,...
. His death was also mentioned in
Time Magazine.
The murder, which all parties to the conflict agreed was politically motivated, also resulted in the UTO's eventual suspension of their role in the government, temporarily bringing the peace process to the point of collapse.
There is still some speculation as to who killed Latifi. Crime figure Abdullo Tursunov was tried and found guilty in June 2000. However, two years before, in January 1998, another man, Ravshan Gafurov was captured by police, and promptly confessed. Gafurov was later killed by police after attempting to escape custody. Tajik police had also claimed that the murder, and several other similar killings, were linked to Islamic Renaissance Party Chairman Said Abdullo Nuri.