Tajikistan court sentences 56 Islamists to jail and fines

Tajikistan's Supreme Court has sentenced 56 people to jail terms or heavy fines for belonging to the banned Tablighi Jamaat Islamist movement, the Interfax news agency reported Wednesday.

Tablighi Jamaat (Society for Spreading Faith) is an international spiritual movement - legal in many other countries - with millions of followers, mainly in South Asia, DPA reported.

The court sentenced and convicted all of the individuals of publicly calling for violent measures to overthrow the country's authorities, and sentenced 23 to between three and six years in prison.

The remaining 33 were ordered to pay fines of up to 16,000 dollars.

The average yearly salary in the impoverished Central Asia republic is around 1,000 dollars.

The authoritarian government in Tajikistan, which borders Afghanistan, fears a revival of Islamism. In the 1990s Islamist rebels fought a bloody civil war against government troops.