In an ordinary office building in Warsaw, a small television studio is at work. When a news broadcast is being recorded there, neighboring offices would hardly understand what the presenter is saying: the news is delivered in Tajik. This is the home of Azda TV, an independent Tajik television channel operating in exile.
The channel’s head, journalist and human rights defender Mukhamadjon Kabirov, invites the visitor into the studio and immediately introduces the presenter: Firuz Khayit, whose father is serving a life sentence. At that moment, the team is preparing for another recording.
Four young staff members work in the studio, using equipment described as old, if not ancient. The newsroom does not even have audio or video mixers. They record directly onto a flash drive inserted into the camera, then move that same drive to a computer for editing. Even under those conditions, the team produces news every day.
Once a week, the channel records a bulletin in Russian, hosted by a Ukrainian presenter. On all other days, the news is recorded in Tajik. In this way, the channel continues reporting to its audience about events in the country while remaining outside it.
Kabirov himself, the article says, never intended to live abroad or to broadcast from a safe location while knocking on European doors to speak about repression and political prisoners in Tajikistan. He grew up in a religious family devoted to its homeland, studied first in Iran, then in the United States, and later in Moscow, always expecting to return home in the end.
He believed that, with both Western and Eastern education, he would be able to serve Tajikistan. According to the author, many think the same way: both those who leave to study or work abroad and those who flee with only a backpack, escaping security forces brandishing an arrest warrant.
At the same time, lives are not always derailed only by direct persecution. Kabirov’s path might have unfolded differently if his wife had been granted a US visa. While he was studying in a graduate program in the United States, she was refused entry. After that, he decided to complete his education in Russia, where no visa was required for her to join him.