In 2022, 21-year-old Jahongir Ulugmurodov shared a religious song on YouTube with his friends in a Telegram group. According to the conclusion of the Committee on Religious Affairs, the nasheed was found to be "infused with ideas of fanaticism".
On May 8, Jahongir Ulugmurodov was found guilty of committing the crime under Article 244-1, Part 3, Clause "g" of the Criminal Code. However, the court applied Article 57 against him and sentenced Ulugmurodov to 3 years of imprisonment.
His mother appealed to the president and the Supreme Court.
“He didn’t know it was a banned material. He thought it was just a song”
I am Gulchehra Umarova, Jahongir’s mother. He is my eldest child and definitely not a bad boy. He studies at the university. I trust him and he is my pride.
I work in a hospital, and my husband works in landscaping… It was mid-autumn; I returned from my shift and went to sleep. After a while, my children woke me up, saying that two people had come. When I went out, they introduced themselves, told me that there was a robbery at the country house and asked me if Jahongir was my son. I answered their questions, told them that my son studies, works and comes in the evening. I told them that he was not a robber for sure. However, they said, “We heard one of the thieves calling his partner Jahon, so we are collecting data about all the boys with this name in the neighborhood.” I called my son and told him what I heard.
He was at work; he went to the place they said. They left, in the meantime, I made a lot of phone calls, but no one answered. At around 12 o'clock, his friend's mother came and said, "Do you know what your son has done?" I took her inside; I didn't understand what was happening. They were saying, "Nasheed, nasheed". I didn’t even know what it meant. My knowledge of religion is rather limited, I would say.
Jahongir came home in a few hours. I asked him what was going on. He kept saying, "I know nothing either. I listened to a song. It was just a song."
His father was angry and told me that it was my mistake to support him to pursue higher education. "You ruined the child," he said...
