Photo: Social media
Mubashshir Ahmad (real name: Alisher Tursunov), the founder of the religious website Azon.uz, has been deported to Uzbekistan, according to his lawyer, Ibrahim Ergin, as reported by the Telegram channel Mubaşşir Ahmad.
On the morning of May 8, Turkish police detained Ahmad at his home in Istanbul. He was initially expected to be transferred to a deportation center and released on May 9. However, for several days, neither his lawyers nor family members had any information about his whereabouts or condition.
According to his lawyer, Ahmad was first held in a migration center in the city of Edirne. On Saturday, he was brought back to Istanbul and then deported to Uzbekistan without due legal procedure.
▫️Mubashshir Ahmad launched the information and analysis platform Azon.uz in 2017. The site focused on publishing news and commentary related to Islam, and some of its content had drawn criticism from the authorities. In August 2023, the Azon media group suspended all its projects. In November, a new multilingual platform, Azon Global, was launched. In December 2023, Ahmad was detained by Turkish authorities and held in a deportation center before being released in February 2024. A year later, in February 2025, Uzbekistan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs issued a warrant for his arrest on charges of creating and participating in banned organizations.
