Uzbek Mosque-Goers Still Under Surveillance

The government in Uzbekistan continues to employ the same repressive tactics as before against anyone seen as an over-zealous Muslim. NBCentralAsia analysts say such methods may feed rather than curb extremism, and the authorities would do well to adopt more nuanced, discriminating policies.



In late March, the Muslim Uzbekistan website carried a report saying that in the eastern city of Andijan, the authorities were running a campaign to identify school pupils and college students who adhered to Muslim rules and observed religious ceremonies.



According to Muslim Uzbekistan, which cited its own sources in the country as well as the Central Asian human rights alliance Voice of Freedom, education staff are required to keep an eye on students suspected of this kind of activity, and report them to the police and the National Security Service or SNB.



Schools in Andijan hold daily meetings at which pupils are urged to avoid religious practice.



NBCentralAsia commentators see this campaign as part of the government’s long-running war on Islamic extremists, which has led it to use indiscriminate and repressive tactics.



Since the early Nineties, the authorities have arrested thousands of people accused of being Islamic fundamentalists, and in recent years of being members of the outlawed Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and Hizb-ut-Tahrir.



In May 2005, the government used the threat of Islamic extremism as justification for the shooting of demonstrators in Andijan. Hundreds of people were killed and injured. President Islam Karimov insisted that fewer than 200 people died, most of them armed Islamists.



The government tightened its grip further in the run-up to the December 2007 presidential election. In November, human rights activists began reporting mass arrests of devout Muslims and the use of torture in prison.



Although the Uzbek constitution guarantees freedom of conscience, religious believers in reality under tight constraints and are closely watched by the authorities, observers say.



“If you study at a madrasah, go to the mosque frequently, or observe all the Muslim ceremonies, you are secretly marked down on the SNB’s records,” said one local journalist.



Analysts interviewed by NBCentralAsia said that in countering the threat of Islamic extremism, especially among schoolchildren, the Uzbek authorities would do well to adopt more constructive policies.



“Young Muslims need to be supported in their religious convictions and offered a non-extremist interpretation of the religion,” said Schaun Wheeler, a researcher at the University of Connecticut who has studied attitudes to religion in Central Asia. “If a person is forced to choose between the state and religion, the state will lose.



Wheeler said the current approach, based on prohibition, is only going to make young people stronger in their religious beliefs.



Surat Ikramov, head of the Initiative Group of Independent Human Rights Activists in Uzbekistan, agrees with this view, saying the government should guarantee the basic right to freedom of confession, and then pass proper laws to combat extremism.



Qodir Malikov, a specialist in politics and Islamic studies with the Institute for Strategic Studies and Forecasting in Kyrgyzstan, sees a need to “immunise” young people in Uzbekistan against extremist ideas.



He pointed to recent studies done in the populous Fergana valley, which revealed that young people saw Islam as a “politicised ideological system” which could rival the ideology of the Uzbek state. That being the case, he said, the authorities in Tashkent needed to take action to prevent this kind of comparison even being made.



First, said Malikov, the Uzbeks needed to adopt a new stance on Islam, because repression was not working. Secondly, they should try working collaboratively with the Muslim community. Finally, he said, they needed to create a more modern structure for the official Muslim clerical establishment.



Critics say the current Muftiate, a Soviet-era institution, is out of touch and subservient to the Karimov regime.



“The Muftiate is… cannot compete in terms of ideology,” explained Malikov. “Young people regard it as an agent of the state, so they look for answers beyond the bounds of official religion.”



(NBCentralAsia is an IWPR-funded project to create a multilingual news analysis and comment service for Central Asia, drawing on the expertise of a broad range of political observers across the region. The project ran from August 2006 to September 2007, covering all five regional states. With new funding, the service is resuming, covering only Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan for the moment).