OFFICIAL STATEMENT of the Movement for Reforms and Development of Tajikistan
regarding the decision of the Moscow City Court of 26 November 2025
On 26 November 2025, the Moscow City Court, having examined the appeal in the case of Sharofiddin Mirzoalievich Gadoev, upheld the unlawful and politically motivated verdict of the Basmanny District Court of Moscow.
The hearing, which began only at 18:20 Moscow time and lasted around one hour, ended with the formal confirmation of a decision predetermined in advance by the Russian authorities. In effect, the court did not examine the arguments and materials submitted by the defence, including the written position of 7 November 2025, which contained international-legal argumentation and evidence of gross violations of international standards of fair trial.
- The Judicial System of Russia Has Finally Become an Instrument of Political Terror
By leaving unchanged the sentence imposed on Sharofiddin Gadoev — a leader of the Tajik opposition, former political prisoner, and victim of transnational abductions and persecution — the Moscow City Court once again demonstrated:
the judicial system of Russia is not independent and is fully subordinated to the political will of the international criminal Vladimir Putin, wanted by the International Criminal Court for the deportation of Ukrainian children.
Today’s decision confirms:
Russian courts do not administer justice — they legalise repression and act as the punitive apparatus of a regime committing crimes against humanity.
- Political Persecution as a Continuation of the Terrorist Actions of the Russian State
The charges brought against Sharofiddin Gadoev and Muhammadikboli Sadriddin under Article 207.3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation are entirely fabricated and aimed solely at punishing them for publicly exposing:
• war crimes committed by the Russian army in Ukraine,
• terrorist actions of the Russian armed forces,
• international aggression against Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, and other states,
• the Kremlin’s colonial policy in Central Asia,
• Russia’s role in supporting the dictatorship of Emomali Rahmon.
With its decision of 26 November, Moscow has effectively acknowledged that any exposure of war crimes committed by the Russian army and of the Kremlin’s state terrorist policy will be punished with imprisonment.
This demonstrates that the Russian state lacks not only justice but also any moral right to speak on behalf of the law.
- The Russian Federation Acts as a Terrorist State
Today’s court decision once again reaffirms the conclusions reached by the European Parliament, PACE, and the parliaments of Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Estonia, the Czech Republic, and several other countries, which have officially recognised Russia as:
a state sponsor of terrorism and a terrorist state.
By committing war crimes in Ukraine — mass killings, torture, deportations, and strikes on civilian targets — the Russian army continues the policy of state terrorism that the Kremlin has applied for decades in Central Asia.
We emphasise:
the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, engaged in aggression and crimes against the civilian population, constitute an instrument of international terrorism, and the decisions of Russian courts serve as legal cover for this terrorist activity.
- Coordination Between the Russian and Tajik Regimes in Political Persecution
The case materials submitted on 7 November contain facts showing that:
• the Tajik security services and the leadership of Emomali Rahmon’s regime are involved in financing and coordinating the persecution of Sharofiddin Gadoev,
• Russian special services and security structures are acting jointly with Dushanbe,
• the aim is the elimination of political leaders, journalists, and activists outside Tajikistan,
• the case and the verdict are being used as a formal pretext for the potential physical elimination of opposition figures.
The Moscow City Court deliberately ignored this evidence, demonstrating that its task is not the protection of the law but the protection of the interests of two authoritarian regimes: Putin’s and Rahmon’s.
- The Verdict Is Legally Void
We declare:
The decision of the Moscow City Court of 26 November 2025 is legally null and void and cannot be recognised by any democratic state.
It violates:
• the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Articles 9, 14, 19)
• the European Convention on Human Rights (Articles 5, 6, 10, 18)
• the UN Charter (Articles 1–2)
• the Geneva Conventions
• the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court
• the OSCE Copenhagen Document
A court acting on behalf of a state-aggressor and a terrorist state possesses neither moral nor legal legitimacy.
- Statement of the Movement for Reforms and Development of Tajikistan
The Movement for Reforms and Development of Tajikistan:
1. Condemns the decision of the Moscow City Court as politically motivated, repressive, and unlawful.
2. Condemns the terrorist actions of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in Ukraine and other countries.
3. Calls on the international community — the EU, USA, United Kingdom, Canada, United Nations, and OSCE — to provide an international legal assessment of this verdict as an act of state and political terror.
4. Calls for strengthening international protection mechanisms for representatives of the Tajik opposition who face the threat of transnational repression.
5. Demands an international investigation into the coordination between Russian and Tajik special services in persecuting and attempting to eliminate political opponents.
6. Emphasises that:
all decisions of the judicial bodies of a terrorist state will have no force in the future legal system of a free Tajikistan nor in international jurisdiction.
- Conclusion
The decision of the Moscow City Court of 26 November 2025 is not justice.
It is a component of Russia’s ongoing state terror directed both against its own citizens and against the peoples of Ukraine, Tajikistan, Georgia, Moldova, Belarus, and the entire region.
We state:
the political persecution of Sharofiddin Gadoev is part of an international crime for which the regime of Vladimir Putin and its allies in Dushanbe will be held accountable before international justice.
The Movement for Reforms and Development of Tajikistan will continue its struggle for freedom, human rights, and democracy — in Tajikistan, in the region, and on the international stage.
Political Council
Movement for Reforms and Development of Tajikistan
27 November 2025
Amsterdam, Kingdom of the Netherlands
The full text of Sharofiddin Gadoev’s written submissions, presented to the Moscow City Court (appellate instance) in the case scheduled for hearing on 26 November 2025, was officially filed on 7 November 2025.
“07” November 2025
Amsterdam
To:
The Moscow City Court
(Appellate Instance for Criminal Cases)
via the Basmanny District Court of Moscow
In Criminal Case No. 10-23874/2025
(UID: 77RS0002-02-2025-005920-93)
on the appeal against the judgment of the
Basmanny District Court of Moscow
dated 29 July 2025
in case No. 01-0315/2025
(presiding judge — Safarin B.M.)
Defendant:
Sharofiddin Mirzoalievich Gadoev,
born 19 May 1985,
citizen of the Republic of Tajikistan,
convicted under subparagraphs “b” and “d” of paragraph 2,
Article 207.3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation
Stage of proceedings: Appellate consideration (criminal case)
Date of receipt by the appellate instance: 30 October 2025
Judicial panel: No. 3
Date and time of court hearing: 26 November 2025, 14:30
WRITTEN POSITION
In accordance with Article 46 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, Article 6 of the European Convention on the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, Article 10 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, as well as Articles 389.1–389.4, 389.6, 389.13, and 389.15 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation, this written position shall be duly attached to the case materials and considered by the appellate court.
To the Dishonorable Court,
I do not believe in your so-called “justice” — just as the world did not believe in the “courts” of Nazi Germany under the bloody dictator Adolf Hitler. Today you are his direct successors, only in an even more perverted form — embodied in your idol and master, Vladimir Putin. Everything you call a “court of law” is, in fact, nothing more than an instrument of political repression serving a mentally unstable, bloodthirsty terrorist — the Kremlin’s Putin.
I, together with Muhammadikboli Sadriddin, founder and editor-in-chief of the independent information-analytical portal Isloh.net and the YouTube channel ISLOH TV, were convicted under subparagraphs “b” and “d” of paragraph 2 of Article 207.3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation — for allegedly “disseminating, under the guise of reliable reports, knowingly false information about the use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation,” committed “by a group of persons by prior conspiracy” and “motivated by national hatred.” The court, relying on Part 5 of Article 247 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, examined the case in my absence and imposed a sentence of 8 years and 6 months of imprisonment, as well as 4 years of prohibition on administering internet resources. This decision is unlawful and unfounded for the following reasons.
- After the Revolution of Dignity (Maidan) in 2014, the people of Ukraine overthrew the authoritarian dictator Viktor Yanukovych, a puppet of the Kremlin acting in the interests of a foreign power. In response, the Russian Federation launched armed aggression against Ukraine, occupying and annexing the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. The so-called “referendum” of 2014 was held under military pressure and in the absence of international monitoring, in direct violation of Articles 2 and 4 of the Charter of the United Nations, the Helsinki Final Act of 1975, and UN General Assembly Resolution 68/262 on the territorial integrity of Ukraine.
The annexation of Crimea constitutes a flagrant violation of the fundamental principles of international law — non-intervention, territorial integrity, and the inadmissibility of acquiring territory by force, as enshrined in the 1970 UN Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Cooperation among States.
This is confirmed by the judgments of the International Court of Justice (Ukraine v. Russia, 2017), as well as by the European Court of Human Rights (Ukraine and the Netherlands v. Russia, 2023), and the ECHR decision of 9 July 2025, which established that Russia bears international responsibility for the occupation and systematic human-rights violations throughout the territory of Crimea.
- Following the annexation of Crimea, the Russian Federation proceeded to the next stage of armed aggression — inciting, financing, and directly managing illegal armed formations on Ukrainian territory with the aim of destabilizing and seizing sovereign regions of the country, including the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Kharkiv, and Odesa regions. Under the slogans of the so-called “Russian world,” Moscow channelled funds, weapons, regular troops, and intelligence operatives to organize terrorist and sabotage groups, coordinating them through its agents and private military companies such as the Wagner Group.
These actions are not an “internal conflict” but a planned operation aimed at the forcible alteration of the borders of a sovereign state, which qualifies as an act of aggression under Article 3 of UN General Assembly Resolution 3314 (XXIX).
Russia violated Articles 1, 2, and 51 of the UN Charter, the Helsinki Final Act, the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, and all core norms of international humanitarian law, including the 1949 Geneva Conventions. These facts are documented in the UN Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights Violations in Ukraine (A/HRC/52/62) and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, confirming the systemic nature of Russia’s aggression.
Thus, Russia has turned parts of Ukraine’s territory into a theatre of occupation and state terrorism, in direct contradiction not only to international treaties but also to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (Articles 5–8 — war crimes, crimes against humanity, and aggression).
- This state-sponsored terrorism lasted for eight years: Russia systematically incited and sustained armed violence in Donbas, manipulated and used civilians as “human shields,” and brought about the catastrophe of flight MH17 — the Malaysian Boeing passenger aircraft shot down by a Russian Buk surface-to-air missile system. By the judgment of The Hague District Court of 17 November 2022 (MH17 case), it was established that the missile had been delivered from Russia and launched from territory under its control; the perpetrators were convicted, and the missile system was traced back to the 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade of the Russian Armed Forces.
This constitutes direct proof of Russia’s involvement in an international crime against the civilian population and serves as an example of terrorist methods of warfare — the deliberate killing of civilians, the intentional creation of an atmosphere of fear, and the destabilization of a sovereign state — Ukraine.
These acts fall under the definition of war crimes and crimes against humanity as provided by Articles 7 and 8 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, and also violate the Fourth Geneva Convention (1949) on the protection of civilians in time of war.
In its judgments in Georgia v. Russia (II) and Ukraine v. Russia (re Crimea), the European Court of Human Rights explicitly recognized Russia’s responsibility for civilian deaths and for the use of force outside the framework of international law.
Thus, Russia’s aggression against Ukraine constitutes a violation of jus cogens — a peremptory norm of international law from which no state may derogate.
The international community — including the European Union, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and other nations — formed a diplomatic coalition that repeatedly sought to resolve the conflict by peaceful means: the Minsk Agreements (2014–2015), the Normandy Format, and negotiations under the mediation of the OSCE.
However, all such efforts proved futile because the original goal of Putin and his regime was not to end the war but to consolidate military occupation and achieve the final seizure of Ukrainian territories. Russia deliberately sabotaged diplomatic solutions, using negotiations merely as a tool of manipulation and a façade for its ongoing aggression.
Such conduct constitutes a violation of the principle of pacta sunt servanda — the good-faith performance of international obligations — enshrined in Article 26 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, and demonstrates mala fide — the deliberate abuse of international law.
- On 24 February 2022, by personal order of the terrorist Vladimir Putin, the Russian Federation launched a full-scale invasion of the sovereign state of Ukraine. This was not a “special military operation” but a direct act of international terrorism aimed at destroying Ukrainian statehood, enslaving its people, and forcibly seizing its territories.
The so-called “Armed Forces of the Russian Federation” are not an army but a terrorist organization composed of murderers, looters, and rapists who entered Ukrainian cities as punitive squads. They cold-bloodedly executed civilians, raped women, children, and the elderly, tortured men, carried out mass shootings of prisoners, and burned the bodies of their victims. Russia deliberately destroyed schools, hospitals, maternity wards, theatres, churches, mosques, and residential neighborhoods — committing what international law unequivocally defines as war crimes and crimes against humanity (Articles 6, 7, and 8 of the Rome Statute of the ICC; Article 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention).
These crimes have been documented by the UN Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights Violations in Ukraine (A/HRC/55/77), the OSCE Fact-Finding Mission, and the International Criminal Court, which opened an investigation in March 2022.
All of this confirms that Russia is acting not as a state but as a fascist–Nazi terrorist structure, systematically annihilating the civilian population.
Over ten million Ukrainians have become refugees; millions more have lost their homes, families, and future. This is not a war — it is a genocide orchestrated by the Kremlin, as recognized by the European Parliament resolution of 23 November 2022, as well as by the parliaments of Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Estonia, all of which have declared Russia’s actions to constitute genocide against the Ukrainian people.
Russia’s actions have been condemned by the overwhelming majority of civilized nations. The European Parliament, PACE, the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, the Seimas of Lithuania, the Saeima of Latvia, the Sejm of Poland, and the parliaments of Estonia, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, and several other countries have officially recognized Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism.
On 17 March 2023, the International Criminal Court in The Hague issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin for the commission of war crimes — including the mass deportation and abduction of Ukrainian children from occupied territories (ICC Case No. ICC-01/22).
From that moment, Putin has been officially recognized as an international criminal and the organizer of state terrorism, wanted by global justice.
According to Articles 25, 27, and 28 of the Rome Statute, the status of Head of State does not exempt an individual from criminal responsibility. Consequently, any Russian “courts” and their “verdicts” delivered on behalf of a state led by a wanted criminal are null and void, illegitimate, and morally criminal.
This is not justice — it is the continuation of a crime committed in the name of a criminal.
- The interference of the Russian Federation is by no means limited to Ukraine. In 2008 Moscow invaded Georgia; in Moldova and in Eastern Europe it continues to support separatist formations and military enclaves, employing them as instruments of political and military blackmail.
The same policy of colonial control is pursued in Central Asia: through military bases, economic pressure, and corrupt schemes, the Kremlin has for decades supported and strengthened authoritarian regimes, in particular the bloody dictatorship of Emomali Rahmon in Tajikistan.
We recall the years 1992–1997, when Russian aircraft bombed Tajik cities and villages, destroying civil infrastructure and killing civilians. According to official data, more than 155,000 people perished in that war — these were not “combat operations” but a planned aggression by Moscow against the Tajik people that enabled the installation in the country of a puppet, pro-Russian, and anti-people regime.
Under Articles 1 and 2 of the UN Charter, such actions qualify as aggression and interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state. International norms, including Article 5 of the Rome Statute, classify such conduct as the crime of aggression, and the Geneva Conventions (IV and Additional Protocol I) prohibit attacks on the civilian population in any form.
Since then, Russia and its proxies in Dushanbe have methodically suppressed democracy, dismantled independent institutions, persecuted the opposition, and done everything to ensure that Tajikistan remains a colony of the Kremlin.
The authoritarian regimes of Russia and Tajikistan operate as a single repressive mechanism: they have coordinated the destruction of civil society, liquidated independent media, abducted activists, lawyers, and journalists from the territory of Russia and third countries, and unlawfully transferred them to Tajik security services contrary to Article 3 of the UN Convention Against Torture (1984) and Article 33 of the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, which prohibit the transfer of persons to states where they face torture or political persecution.
Even Russian citizens of Tajik origin have been subjected to deportation and subsequent torture and killings in Tajikistan.
In 2019 I myself became a victim of this transnational terror: I was abducted on the territory of the Russian Federation and forcibly handed over to the Tajik regime. Such actions violate the Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation for Victims of Gross Violations of International Human Rights Law and Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law (UN General Assembly Resolution 60/147).
Only thanks to the decisive actions of the international community — the countries of the European Union, the United States, and human-rights organizations — was I able to survive and gain my freedom. I am the sole survivor among hundreds of victims of coordinated transnational repressions carried out at the orders of Putin and Rahmon.
But thousands of other citizens of Tajikistan have become victims of your terrorist acts, subjected to torture, enforced disappearances, and killings.
Today I look at my country — Tajikistan — and see how it has been turned into a puppet of the Kremlin, a colony governed from Moscow. The Rahmon regime obeys every instruction from Putin and, in return, receives support in the extermination of its own people.
Russia and its proxies in Dushanbe operate as a single terrorist system: with one hand they kill Ukrainians, with the other they strangle Tajiks, Uzbeks, Kazakhs, and all those who dared to dream of freedom.
The civilized world supports Ukraine because it understands that the Ukrainian people today are fighting not only for their own independence but for the freedom of all peoples oppressed by the new Nazi empire called the Russian Federation.
In the 21st century, it is Russia that has become the embodiment of fascism — a state built on hatred, falsehood, and blood.
- Specific information regarding coordination of persecution and the threat to my life.
I possess credible information that Rustam Emomali (the son of the President of the Republic of Tajikistan), for the purpose of initiating the present criminal case and arranging for my physical liquidation, allocated the sum of USD 6,000,000 (six million United States dollars), which was transferred to his close friend — the Head of the Department of Internal Affairs of the city of Dushanbe, Saidzoda Shokhruh — Major-General of Militia. According to available data, the specified sum was subsequently handed over to the senior leadership of the Russian special services, and a portion of these funds was intended for organizing my physical liquidation on the territory of one of the member states of the European Union. The judgment issued against me by the Russian court is used as a formal pretext and legal cover for preparing and potentially conducting a joint operation by the special services of the Republic of Tajikistan and the Russian Federation with the aim of eliminating me abroad. In the event that this plan is carried out, based on information in my possession, responsibility for the committed crime is intentionally planned to be attributed to the Russian Federation, which is currently under international sanctions and political isolation in connection with the commission of serious crimes and the waging of an aggressive war against Ukraine.
There are also grounds to believe that senior officials of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB) and the leadership of the Main Directorate of the General Staff (GRU) are systematically involved in large-scale criminal and corrupt schemes, including international drug trafficking (transit from Afghanistan through the territory of Tajikistan), from which the said structures derive substantial financial gains. The activities of the Russian special services are acquiring the characteristics of a mafia syndicate with extensive links in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Europe; these structures have repeatedly demonstrated a readiness to resort to criminal acts for the sake of money, corruption, and political objectives. On the basis of the available facts, it must be stated that joint operations of Russian and Tajik special services include the persecution, abductions, and killings of Tajik political activists and journalists outside Tajikistan, as well as the elimination of citizens of the Russian Federation who publicly oppose the current regime. All of this confirms the existence of a coordinated criminal-repressive mechanism that constitutes an immediate and real threat to my life, to the lives of other persons, and to my personal security.
- Internal Terror and the Destruction of One’s Own People as State Policy
For the insane ambitions of a single man — Vladimir Putin — the entire Russian people are paying the price. Millions of individuals have been turned into expendable material: fathers, sons, and daughters have been sent to war; families have been deprived of their breadwinners; and an entire generation of young men has been thrown into the furnace of an imperialist adventure to preserve the personal power of a dictator. Hundreds of thousands have been wounded, maimed, and returned disabled; tens of thousands lie in graves; and hundreds of thousands languish in prisons and camps, which in today’s Russia outnumber those of Lavrentiy Beria’s era. This is not the defense of a nation — it is the mass disposal of a people, carried out by a political mafia masquerading as a state.
Since 2022, more than one million citizens have fled Russia — not as tourists, but as exiles escaping political persecution, mobilization slavery, and the threat of being turned into cannon fodder for the ambitions of one dictator. Tens of thousands of members of the intelligentsia, engineers, journalists, teachers, scientists, entrepreneurs, IT specialists, and young professionals have left the country, refusing to participate in the regime’s war crimes, while tens of thousands who remain live under constant threat of criminal reprisal for their thoughts, words, or anti-war stance. Hundreds of thousands have already suffered arbitrary arrests, fabricated charges, torture, and imprisonment — all in a country where law has become fiction, the judiciary — a punitive tool, the security apparatus — an instrument of repression, and the state itself — a vast machine of coercion systematically grinding down freedom, intellect, and the future of its own people.
This is internal state terror, violating Articles 3 and 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Articles 6, 7, 9, and 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Articles 2, 4, and 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, and falling under the definition of crimes against humanity pursuant to Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court — including the systematic persecution of civilians, unlawful deprivation of liberty, torture, and other inhumane acts.
Fear has become the principal instrument of power: in modern Russia, teenagers are imprisoned for drawings, students for social-media posts, mothers for words, journalists for truth, and lawyers for defending their clients. The suppression of freedom of expression, dissent, and protest has become the foundation of state governance. The authorities fear not an enemy’s army — they fear thought, they fear truth, they fear music capable of inspiring people toward freedom.
Eighteen-year-old Diana Loginova (Naoko), an ordinary schoolgirl with a guitar, is being prosecuted under criminal charges for songs and melodies that the regime deemed a threat to its existence. If a state fears a guitar, it is no surprise that it kills opposition leaders. Alexei Navalny was eliminated in prison — after the application of a chemical warfare agent, isolation, denial of medical assistance, and the deliberate infliction of death. Such political assassinations, which cause international outrage, do not occur in Russia without the direct sanction of the head of the criminal regime — Vladimir Putin. This was a deliberate state-sponsored elimination of an opposition leader, an act of terror against its own people and the entire free world. The Putin regime fears truth so deeply that it is ready to kill — yet it will not escape international justice and historical accountability.
The regime systematically destroys independent media, suppresses the legal profession, and eradicates civil society: journalists, lawyers, scholars, artists, and activists are imprisoned or forced into exile. This violates Articles 9, 10, and 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, as well as findings of the European Court of Human Rights in Navalnyy v. Russia (2018) and Khodorkovskiy and Lebedev v. Russia (2013), which established that Russian authorities systematically employ criminal prosecution as a tool of political retaliation and societal intimidation.
Mass detentions, administrative repressions, criminal prosecutions based on fabricated accusations, pressure on families and employers, and forced transfers of individuals to states where they face torture or reprisal have become routine practice. These are not isolated incidents but elements of a state policy of terror against dissenters and society as a whole. Such actions violate the UN Convention Against Torture (Articles 1–4), the 1951 Refugee Convention (Article 33 on the prohibition of expulsion and return — non-refoulement), as well as Article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which explicitly prohibits torture and degrading treatment.
Today, Russia is deprived of even the most basic legal protection: law is used as an instrument of punitive policy rather than as a guarantee of human rights. This contravenes the rule of law principle affirmed in the 2012 UN Declaration on the Right to Access to Justice and Legal Protection, and it violates Article 2(1) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which obligates the state to ensure effective remedies for violations.
Such a situation makes it impossible to safely express civic positions within the country while simultaneously heightening the threat to neighboring peoples against whom the Kremlin employs force and terror.
- Political Motivation of Persecution and the Influence of Foreign Policy on Justice
The evidence collected in the present case must be examined in the context of the systemic policy of the Russian Federation and its allies to persecute and suppress dissent. Internationally recognized facts and official decisions — including the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant of 17 March 2023, multiple UN General Assembly resolutions, PACE and European Parliament resolutions, and UN reports on human rights violations in Russia — attest to the deliberate use of state institutions for purposes of political persecution.
Under such conditions, the criminal prosecution of the applicant on fabricated charges acquires a clearly political character and cannot be regarded as a neutral application of criminal law.
According to PACE Resolution No. 2156 (2017) and Articles 18 and 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the prosecution of individuals for political expression constitutes a violation of international standards on freedom of opinion and expression.
In the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights — including Lutsenko v. Ukraine, Tymoshenko v. Ukraine, and Nemtsov Foundation v. Russia — it has been established that the use of criminal law to achieve political ends qualifies as abuse of power and constitutes a violation of Article 18 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits the restriction of human rights for purposes not prescribed by law.
Consequently, the conclusions of the court of first instance, based on proceedings conducted under conditions of clear political motivation, lose the required objectivity and legality.
Moreover, under paragraph 5.16 of the OSCE Copenhagen Document (1990), every state is obliged to guarantee that “justice shall be administered by independent courts and judges free from any influence by the executive branch.”
The absence of such independence renders the judgment issued null and void under international law, as an act of political persecution and a violation of the obligations arising from Articles 1, 2, and 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Conclusion: International Legal Assessment and the Legal Nullity of the Verdict
The court that calls itself Russian possesses neither the moral nor the legal authority to render judgments in the name of justice.
It operates under conditions in which the very state on whose behalf it adjudicates has been recognized by the international community as an aggressor state and a state sponsor of terrorism.
Therefore, any verdict it pronounces is null and void under international law and produces no legal consequences whatsoever.
In accordance with Articles 1 and 2 of the Charter of the United Nations, the purpose of international law is the preservation of peace, the protection of human rights, and the supremacy of justice.
The Russian Federation, having committed an act of aggression against Ukraine, has gravely violated these fundamental principles and has thereby forfeited its international legal personality in matters of justice.
This is confirmed by UN General Assembly Resolutions 68/262, ES-11/1, ES-11/4, and ES-11/5; by reports of the UN Commission of Inquiry on Crimes in Ukraine; and by decisions of the European Parliament, PACE, and the parliaments of Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Estonia, and the Netherlands, which have explicitly qualified Russia as a terrorist state.
The legal doctrine of international law recognizes that the organs of an aggressor state committing crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide cannot enjoy the presumption of legality (presumptio iuris de iure).
This position is enshrined in the Nuremberg Tribunal doctrine (1946), in the International Court of Justice judgments in Nicaragua v. United States (1986) and Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Serbia and Montenegro (2007), as well as in the UN International Law Commission’s Draft Articles on State Responsibility (2001, Articles 4–8, 40–41).
According to these authorities, the acts of organs operating under the control of a criminal regime are deemed to be acts of a criminal state and cannot create lawful effects.
Moreover, Article 27 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court explicitly provides that no official capacity — including that of Head of State — exempts an individual from criminal responsibility.
Accordingly, judicial bodies of the Russian Federation operating under the authority of a person against whom the ICC has issued an arrest warrant (ICC-01/22, 17 March 2023) cannot be considered independent or competent courts of law.
All their judgments are ipso jure null and void and cannot be recognized by any civilized nation.
Under the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (1969, Articles 26–27), states are bound to fulfill their international obligations in good faith and may not invoke their internal laws or judicial decisions as justification for breaches of international law.
Thus, Russian verdicts delivered in politically motivated proceedings stand in direct violation of Russia’s own international obligations arising from the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Articles 2, 9, 14, 19) and the European Convention on Human Rights (Articles 5, 6, 10, 18).
These provisions guarantee to every person the right to liberty, a fair trial, and freedom of expression; their systematic violation renders the decisions of Russian courts legally invalid under international law.
In international jurisprudence, the principle ex injuria jus non oritur — “law does not arise from wrongdoing” — applies.
A court acting on behalf of a state committing international crimes is not a court of law, and its verdict is not an act of justice.
It constitutes a continuation of the crime itself and must be regarded as an act of political and state terror, falling within the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court and under the principle of universal jurisdiction of national courts, as provided by Article 5 of the Rome Statute and the 1949 Geneva Conventions.
Accordingly:
• The verdict rendered against me violates peremptory norms of international law (jus cogens), including the prohibitions of aggression, torture, political repression, and deprivation of liberty for one’s beliefs;
• Russia, as an aggressor state and perpetrator of international crimes, has lost the right to have its judicial acts recognized as lawful;
• The present verdict has no force in international law nor within the legal systems of any state that upholds the rule of law and the Charter of the United Nations.
I declare:
I do not recognize the legitimacy of your court, your judgments, or your so-called “state.”
You are not judges — you are participants in a criminal regime already condemned by history and international law.
Sooner or later, all those guilty of these crimes — from Vladimir Putin and his accomplices to the executors in judicial robes — will stand before the International Criminal Court in The Hague, just as the Nazi criminals once stood before the tribunal at Nuremberg.
That day is inevitable — because law, truth, and justice stand above fear and above dictatorship.
I sincerely wish the people of Russia a swift liberation from Putin’s terrorist, fascist, and Nazi regime, which has enslaved your country, humiliated your dignity, and dragged your nation into a criminal war.
May Russia return as soon as possible to the path of freedom, democracy, peace, and respect for international law.
I shall return to a free Tajikistan — not as an accused, but as a witness before an international tribunal for dictators.
For the end of tyranny is inevitable — and freedom is inevitable for those who fight for it.
When this bloody system of lies, fear, and violence collapses, not only will Putin’s regime fall, but also the satrapies he created — built on the betrayal of their own peoples and submission to a foreign will.
Tajikistan, like Ukraine, Georgia, Belarus, and Russia itself, will be freed from colonial dependency, and the destiny of our country will once again be determined not by a dictator or a foreign army, but by our own people.
I believe — and I know — that the day of freedom will come.
And I shall greet it on my native soil, together with those who never accepted slavery and never bowed before evil.
For history belongs not to the executioners — but to those who rise against them.
And Tajikistan will rise — as part of the free world, among the community of free nations.
Today you stand before a choice far greater than the fate of a single political case.
It concerns whether you are a court of justice, or merely an appendage of a repressive system.
If you are guided by the Constitution of the Russian Federation, the international obligations of the state, the norms of international law, and the principles of justice, this verdict must be overturned as unlawful, politically motivated, and null and void.
If, however, the verdict is upheld, it will serve as yet another confirmation — for Russia and for the entire world — that the judicial system of the Russian Federation has finally lost its independence and has become an instrument of political repression in the hands of the criminal regime of Vladimir Putin, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court.
This is not my choice — it is your choice.
And it will enter history.
History always answers the ultimate question: who was a judge — and who was merely an executor of a dictatorship’s will.
“07” November 2025
Amsterdam
Sharofiddin Mirzoalievich Gadoev
