±«Óãtv

This week I was planning to write a light entry on Royal Ascot, but the life of a journalist is unpredictable.

On 14 June in the morning, I received an email from a colleague in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, who told me that our reporter in Hodjand in the north of the country - Urunboy Usmonov - had disappeared after work the previous day.

His relatives rang all the hospitals and morgues without any news.

In the ±«Óãtv's Central Asian service, we know Urunboy very well.

He is 59. He is a poet and writer who has worked for us for the last 10 years, covering all kinds of stories: local politics, religion, social and cultural issues.

He is a solid and serious man, not the sort you would expect to embark on a silly adventure.

So we started to worry and rang all our local contacts.

By midday we had a text message from his son Oybek, saying that Urunboy was back home accompanied by a number of men.

At that moment, we were happy - thinking the reporter was safe and sound.

While myself and colleagues were guessing who the men with Urunboy might be, we had another SMS saying that security officers were searching Urunboy's home.

I rang Oybek immediately and asked to speak to the officers: to find out what was going on, but I overheard one of them say that nobody was going to talk to anyone.

Oybek told us that the officers were behaving quite rudely and were looking for Hizb ut-Tahrir flyers and books (an outlawed Islamic organisation).

He also said that the face of his father was bruised.

Some time later the officers took Urunboy to the provincial security service headquarters.

Leaving his home he whispered to his family: "It's because of my work. I can't take another night like the last one. I can't survive."

Now we were in the picture.

Yes, we have commissioned stories on Hizb ut-Tahrir in Northern Tajikistan, and as a reporter - and as a journalist - Urunboy would have had journalistic contacts with some members of that outlawed organisation, covering their trials.

But in no way does it mean that he was sympathetic towards their ideas or was a member of their organisation.

I rang Farzona Hodjandi - a famous Tajik poet - who knew Urunboy really well, because they used to work together.

"No!" she exclaimed, "He is the purest democrat!"

Whoever I spoke to that day - even officials at the Tajik Foreign Ministry - were all surprised by this incident.

But apparently the grip of the security services is so strong in Tajikistan that even high-ranking officials in local government couldn't clarify the situation, let alone assist in his release.

Next day the ±«Óãtv issued a statement asking for the immediate release of its correspondent Urunboy Usmonov.

The British Embassy in Tajikistan also officially expressed its concerns over the detention of Urunboy.

Several international organisations issued or are issuing similar statements.

So far there's no official response from the Tajik authorities.

Our biggest concern is that Urunboy, who has a heart condition, is deprived of his medicine.

He has already been denied access both to his lawyer and family for several days.

I lost my friend - ±«Óãtv correspondent Muhiddin Olimpur in Tajikistan. He was killed in 1995.

I lost another friend, Alisher Soipov, who also worked for the ±«Óãtv in Kyrgyzstan and was murdered in 2007.

My colleagues from Uzbekistan had to leave the country after the Andijan tragedy and another friend and colleague, the ±«Óãtv correspondent in Central Asia Monica Whitlock was deported from the country for her work.

Ogulsapar Muradova - a journalist from Turkmenistan, who helped ±«Óãtv correspondents, was imprisoned and died custody in 2006.

I can tell stories and stories of the cost of being a journalist in Central Asia and I'm really concerned that the case of Urunboy Usmanov could become another chapter of that tragic narrative.