On June 16, Alexander Sodiqov, a Ph.D student in political science at the University of Toronto, was arrested in his native Tajikistan and reportedly charged with espionage and treason. His crime: investigating a local conflict that the government would rather you not know anything about.

It is easy to keep secrets in the Pamir Mountains — the rugged, sparsely populated eastern region of Tajikistan that borders China and Afghanistan. There is one flight a day from the capital Dushanbe to the region’s main city, Khorog, and it is canceled at the slightest hint of bad weather. The only alternative is a 15-or-so-hour drive over rough mountain roads. Foreigners need a special permit to visit; during times of tension the government stops issuing those, and it cuts off phone and Internet access to the outside world.

Since becoming an independent country in 1991, Tajikistan has struggled to assert its control over the Pamirs, where informal leaders (known generally as “commanders”) who are often involved in smuggling and other criminal activities hold substantial power. The Pamirs are home to the Pamiri people, who speak a different language from other Tajiks, and follow the Ismaili branch of Shiite Islam (most Tajiks are Sunni). Many of Tajikistan’s roughly 135,000 Pamiris have come to see themselves as victims of a chauvinistic dictatorship that wants to suppress their culture. Pamiris are among the strongest opponents of President Emomali Rahmon, whose 22-year rule over Tajikistan has become more and more kleptocratic and nepotistic.

In the summer of 2012, after a local security official was killed near Khorog, which is by the Afghan border, the government undertook a military operation there. Ostensibly aimed at capturing several commanders it blamed for the official’s death, the operation’s scale and intensity made it seem more like an attempt to finally get the Pamirs under control. Snipers stationed on the two steep ridges that encase the town fired indiscriminately at residents, backed up by mortars and helicopters.