World Bulletin / News Desk

Tajikistan's parliament has unanimously approved a Tajik-Chinese agreement on the mutual extradition of suspected and convicted felons.

Presenting the bilateral agreement to lawmakers before the debate, Tajik Prosecutor-General Yusuf Rahmonov urged passage in order to safeguard the rights of Tajik nationals in China and give them a chance to serve their terms in Tajik penitentiaries.

Currently in China there are 16 Tajik nationals, including seven women, in detention. Four of those inmates, including one woman, are on death row and five more are serving life terms, he added.

According to a BBC Uzbek report, most were detained, arrested, or sentenced on drug-trafficking charges.

Rahmonov said three Chinese citizens are currently serving prison terms in Tajikistan, one for rape and two for endangering public health and drug trafficking.

Both Tajikistan and China are members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which also includes Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Russia.

According to Asia News agency ,the pursuit of this agreement has been an opportunity many years in the making. The extradition of suspects between Russia, former Soviet countries  Central Asia, and China has been under investigation by international and domestic human rights defenders for years.

The ethnically Turkic Uyghurs, who are mostly Muslim, routinely face discrimination in China.

Another Central Asian state, Kazakhstan, has repatriated several Chinese citizens of Uyghur origin who were seeking Kazakh asylum, earning criticism from domestic and international human rights organizations.