Tajikistan’s banned main opposition group, the Islamic Renaissance Party (IRPT), is one of three plaintiffs in a suit filed with the International Criminal Court (ICC) seeking to hold President Emomali Rahmon’s administration accountable for alleged crimes against humanity.

“Finally, it’s done!” the IRPT’s exiled leader, Muhhidin Kabiri, wrote on X on April 11, announcing the filing of the lawsuit. “I hope [Rahmon] will soon answer for all the crimes against the Tajik people. It took four years of work, the nation was waiting for this day.”

Tajiks can expect to wait several more years for an ICC decision in the case, given the court’s lengthy process to determine whether the suit has merit and the pre-trial investigatory phase.

Two non-governmental organisations — the Ukrainian Fund of International Volunteers and a group called Freedom for Eurasia — are also plaintiffs in the case, according to their lawyer Nicolas Ligneul. In a press release posted on social media networks, Ligneul said the suit is based on evidence compiled over the past 15 years, involving 60 distinct cases “documenting acts of arbitrary detention, torture, rape, solitary confinement, disappearance, forced exile and murder.” 

The suit maintains that the assembled evidence supports the claim that Rahmon’s administration carried out a “coordinated state policy to eradicate political opposition, in particular against members [and] sympathizers” of the IRPT, which was banned in 2015.

“In the face of the total absence of domestic remedies, the international route is the only hope for justice for the victims,” Ligneul’s statement adds.

The ICC suit is not the only headache that Rahmon is dealing with these days. The government’s pet infrastructure project, the Rogun Dam, is mired in controversy. An independent investigatory body associated with the World Bank, a major creditor involved in the project, is conducting a probe to determine whether bank officials flouted safeguard procedures during the funding-approval process.  

Rahmon held an unusually timed meeting on Sunday, April 13, with top World Bank representatives, including managing director of operations Anna Bjerde and vice president for the Europe and Central Asia region Antonella Bassani. “The parties discussed current issues of increasing the production and export of clean energy from renewable sources in Tajikistan and, on this basis, developing a ‘green’ economy,” according to an account of the meeting published by Khovar, the official state media outlet.

This article first appeared on Eurasianet here.