, March 14, Asia-Plus - The Otakhon Latifi commemoration meeting will be held at the Tajik Cinematographers’ Union in Dushanbe on March 16.   

According to information from the Tajik Cinematographers’ Union, the meeting’s program includes presentation of a book entitled “Last Spring of Otakhon Latifi” and demonstration of several documentaries made by Otakhon Latifi himself and a video about life this known Tajik public figure and journalists.  

Representatives from Tajik intelligentsia, media as well as relatives and friends of Otakhon Latifi have been invited to attend his commemoration meeting.  

Information of Asia-Plus: Otakhon Latifi was born at the northern town of Panjakent in 1936.  In 1963, he graduated from the Journalist Faculty at Leningrad State University . Mr. Otakhon Latifi, who was that time Chairman of Commission for National Reconciliation’s (CNR) Legal Sub-Commission, was shot dead by an unidentified gunman outside his apartment in the center of Dushanbe on September 22 1998 .

Prior to Tajikistan ''s independence, Mr. Latifi had worked as correspondent and editor of "Pravda" newspaper in Dushanbe . He served as Deputy Prime Minister in the national reconciliation/coalition government in 1992. Having left the country during the civil war, he was the Chairman of the Coordinating Center of Tajiks in CIS countries based in Moscow for several years.  Mr. Latifi returned to Dushanbe with other UTO leaders in September 1997.  Mr. Latifi was a senior member of the United Tajik Opposition delegation during three years of inter-Tajik peace negotiations under the United Nations mediation. His immense contribution to the attainment of peace and national reconciliation in Tajikistan was recognized by both parties, the people of Tajikistan and the United Nations.