Kyrgyzstan: Does Tough Policing Spell End of Islamic Radicalism?

Hardliners in the Kyrgyz government appear determined to pursue tough tactics against the Islamic movement Hizb ut-Tahrir, despite warnings that heavy-handed action and assaults on people’s basic rights could increase support for the group rather than eroding it.

An outbreak of unrest in the southern town of Nookat last autumn was followed by a wave of detentions of alleged supporters of Hizb ut-Tahrir. Human rights activists recorded numerous allegations of police brutality and other illegal actions, and this was confirmed in a report released by Kyrgyzstan’s official human rights watchdog.

The disturbances occurred on October 1 when a demonstration against the town council’s refusal to arrange a celebration of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr to mark the end of Ramadan spilled over into violence. The demonstration was dispersed by riot squads bused in from the main regional centre, Osh, after protesters threw stones at local government offices. (For more on the unrest, see Kyrgyzstan: Islamic Protest Sparked by Official Insensitivity, RCA No. 551, 14-Oct-08.)

A wave of detentions ensued in the days that followed. When the subsequent trial ended on November 27, a total of 32 people were convicted of a number of offences including incitement to cause mass unrest, overthrow the authorities, and create ethnic or religious strife. They received lengthy sentences ranging from nine to 20 years in prison. A 17-year old boy got nine years, while two women were given sentences of 15 and 16 years respectively. (For the immediate reaction to the trials, see Controversy Over Kyrgyz Protest Sentences, RCA No. 558, 12-Dec-08.)

In late January, the public relations chief of the Osh regional police, Jenish Sharshenbaev, told IWPR that ringleaders of the unrest were positively identified from video recordings made at the time. He said they accounted for the bulk of those detained in the subsequent sweep, and for all of those convicted.

Officials said the disturbances were not spontaneous, but deliberately orchestrated by Hizb ut-Tahrir, which operates semi-covertly in Kyrgyzstan, especially in the south, where religious observance is stronger than in the north.

Unlike Uzbekistan, where Islamic groups are persecuted and thousands of Hizb ut-Tahrir sympathisers have been jailed over the years, Kyrgyzstan has not explicitly banned membership of the organisation, although the Supreme Court issued a ruling prohibiting the group from operating in 2003, and the constitution prohibits faith-based political parties in general.

The group has a radical agenda – to replace the region’s secular governments with an Islamic state – but it says it uses only non-violent methods. However, Central Asian governments have accused members of being behind a number of attacks and insist the movement poses a threat to security. In Kyrgyzstan, Hizb ut-Tahrir’s tactic in recent years has been to support the cause of local communities which have a particular grievance against the authorities.

Officials estimate that Hizb ut-Tahrir has some 15,000 members in Kyrgyzstan, although religious affairs expert Ikbaljan Mirsaitov told the 24.kg news agency recently that there were no more than 2,000.

OMBUDSMAN’S OFFICE DOCUMENTS SERIOUS ABUSES

There is substantial evidence suggesting that police denied detainees their rights and used physical violence in an attempt to coerce confessions. Documentation by human rights defenders was reinforced in late February by a highly critical report from a commission sent to Nookat by the ombudsman, Tursunbek Akun.

The ombudsman’s office is funded by the state, but unlike similar institutions in other Central Asian states, the Kyrgyz version is independent enough to order a robust investigation of the kind conducted in Nookat and then publish its unvarnished findings.

“My report on events in Nookat was quite tough and critical of the authorities’ actions, but [parliamentary] deputies, in particular, have accepted this criticism,” ombudsman Akun told IWPR.

The investigative commission interviewed all sides – police, local officials, lawyers for the prosecution and defence, the individuals convicted, and their families – and found, among other things, that detainees were denied full access to legal counsel, held in custody for longer than the prescribed 48 hours, and subjected to torture. Furthermore, no questions were asked in court during the hearing to approve the arrests warrants, even though some of the defendants bore visible injuries and two were unable to walk.

The report also blamed local officials for allowing the demonstration to spiral out of control, and later on, for practicing various kinds of discrimination against family members of those convicted.

The Moscow-based rights organisation Memorial issued a similarly damning report a month earlier, based on interviewees with detainees and family members.

The Memorial report appears to have incensed officials in Bishkek, and its author Vitaly Ponomarev, who heads the group’s Central Asia programme, was deported from Kyrgyzstan in February.

When IWPR spoke to residents of Nookat, they made similar claims that detainees were tortured and relatives harassed.

One woman, who did not want to be named, said her sister suffered a miscarriage after being systematically beaten and forced to hold a heavy weight for prolonged periods while wearing handcuffs. This case was one of several cited in both the ombudsman’s and the Memorial reports.

“When we were allowed to see her after making repeated official representations, we could see the marks left by the torture. Losing the baby was particularly hard for her to deal with,” said the woman’s sister. “And after all that, she got 16 years.”

This woman said her sister was caught on police video only because she was in the town centre looking for one of her children who had got lost.

Officials in Osh region continue to reject any allegation of systematic abuse.

Atay Shakirov, deputy prosecutor for Osh region, told IWPR that all suspects were provided with legal counsel from the outset and then all the way through the investigation, despite the ombudsman’s report that this was not the case.

The governor of Nookat district, Ahmadjan Mahamadov, who was appointed after the October violence, would go no further than to accept that some detentions had involved the use of force, but he said the individuals concerned were subsequently released.

Meanwhile, relatives of people rounded up after the unrest accuse police of extorting money to release some, and not to arrest or torture others.

A woman who gave her name as Maqsuda said that after her son was detained, police came round to the house and demanded a bribe, otherwise they would arrest her husband, too. Her husband later died on the way to hospital after hearing that the regional court had upheld the sentence that the district-level court had passed against her son, who she insists was innocent.

The ombudsman’s report states that after the disturbances, police made a habit of picking people up and then demanding a “ransom” to let them go again.

Relatives of those sent to prison told IWPR that their child benefits were withdrawn without explanation. A mother of five called Mavluda said a post office worker informed her that the money had been stopped after her husband was jailed, and also told her the same was happening to other people.

Nookat’s local government chief, Mahamadov, denied that the authorities had ordered child benefits to be stopped, but promised to look into the matter.

OFFICIALS ARGUE TOUGH TACTICS ARE PAYING OFF

Representatives of local government and police, as well as some more senior figures, told IWPR that the long sentences handed down in November and the continuing efforts to root out Hizb ut-Tahrir are not only justified, but are proving an effective deterrent. Their argument is based on the view that Kyrgyzstan has tolerated extremist Muslim activity for too long, emboldening Hizb ut-Tahrir members to openly challenge the authorities, and it is now time to clamp down.

Police in southern Kyrgyzstan are continuing to conduct raids to detain people they suspect are Hizb ut-Tahrir members.

Shakir Zulimov, deputy head of Osh’s regional interior ministry department, said the methods now being used may be harsh, but “they are justified”.

Zulimov said the police’s handling of the Nookat disturbances had prompted some members to leave the group.

“They have started saying publicly that they are leaving the ranks of Hizb ut-Tahrir. In Nookat district, 18 Hizb ut-Tahrir members have renounced their adherence to it, 11 in Kara Suu district, and around 50 in [neighbouring] Jalalabad region have also done so in public,” he said. “In other words, our tough actions have been justified and are already bearing fruit. Supporters of the party are no longer speaking in public as they used to do.”

In the interview he gave to the 24.kg agency, religious affairs expert Mirsaitov said police were openly using the aftermath Nookat as a deterrent to others.

As an example, he cited the February 24 gathering of around 100 Hizb ut-Tahrir supporters in the town of Uzgen, who dispersed after prosecutors warned them of the consequences. The group was protesting against the arrest of two men identified as the Hizb ut-Tahrir leader in Uzgen and an associate.

If local officials appear determined to stamp out Hizb ut-Tahrir, it is less clear to what extent the campaign reflects policy at the highest level in Kyrgyzstan.

The Memorial report suggested that the drive to mete out harsh punishment to Hizb ut-Tahrir members detained after the Nookat unrest came from national level, specifically from certain conservative-minded politicians and from hawks in the law enforcement agencies working in tandem.

“If the approach they are proposing gains the upper hand, we may very soon witness fabricated political and criminal charges on a massive scale, with the aim of convicting more and more suspected and real ‘extremists’, both religious and secular,” said the document.

“Such actions, if sanctioned by the political leadership, will merely provoke increasing instability and a strengthening of radical Islamic groups. The situation must also be viewed within the context of the complex ethnic relations in southern Kyrgyzstan… it is noteworthy that of the 32 Nookat residents convicted, 25 were ethnic Uzbeks.”

Interviewed by IWPR, interior ministry spokesman Bakyt Seitov said, “The Interior Ministry is taking a tough stand. We are doing preventive work in the provinces to tell people about the nature of religious extremism. We have to be tough about halting the activities of religious organisations.”

This view was echoed by Kanybek Osmonaliev, who chairs the government committee that oversees religious affairs. At a March 18 conference in Osh, he cited a controversial law passed in October that imposes tighter controls on religious groups, and said it was a step forward. Under the old, more lax legislation, he said, Kyrgyzstan had become an attractive destination for a range of religious groups, including radical ones.

The ombudsman insists that this policy does not come from President Kurmanbek Bakiev.

“The president’s policy on religion is quite sympathetic and balanced. It is the law enforcement agencies and the state committee for religion that are exacerbating the situation, and doing the president a disservice by damaging his reputation,” said Akun.

TOUGH POLICIES COULD BACKFIRE

Human rights activists and religious affairs analysts warn that excessively heavy-handed tactics will merely radicalise members of groups like Hizb ut-Tahrir, and encourage them to disappear below the security forces’ radar.

“The punitive and repressive methods currently being employed could drive them [Hizb ut-Tahrir members] underground, and make it even more difficult efforts for the authorities and the law enforcement agencies to control them,” said Ravshan Gapirov, a human rights activist who has acted on behalf of a number of alleged Hibz ut Tahrir members when they were arrested and put on trial.

Another activist, Sadykjan Mahmudov, accepts that Hizb ut-Tahrir exploited the degree of tolerance it used to enjoy in order to operate openly and recruit new members, but he says completely reversing that policy is not the answer.

“It doesn’t figure that more repression is needed. Violence always breeds violence,” he said. The state and the law enforcement agencies should have behaved punctiliously and avoided any unlawful action. The public can now see them acting very harshly and unfairly,” he said,

A Hizb ut-Tahrir activist who gave his name as Hakimjan seemed to confirm that the crackdown would make the group less visible without actually preventing it operating.

“The use of force by the Kyrgyz authorities will not affect activities of our members. On the contrary we will act more carefully, and with greater unity,” he said.

Hakimjan claimed that of the 32 people jailed for the Nookat violence, only one was a Hizb ut-Tahrir member, while “the others are people whose relatives were unable to buy their freedom. Some of our activists were among those detained, but their families bought them out by bribing police and security service officers.”

He added, “Unfair treatment by the law enforcement forces can only be to our advantage. The relatives of people convicted after Nookat have expressed interest in our party, and they are likely to join us as a protest against the authorities.”

A number of interviewees drew parallels with neighbouring Uzbekistan, where the government has used mass arrests and violence in an attempt to root out one Islamic group after another over the last decade and a half.

“In the early Nineties, many religious groups in Uzbekistan became radicalised because of the inappropriate measures that were undertaken,” said Orozbek Moldaliev, an expert on religion and security matters. “That’s the main lesson the authorities here need to learn. You cannot fight religious extremism using force.”

Many commentators in Kyrgyzstan believes Uzbekistan continues to exert a malign influence on shaping policy towards Islamic radicals, encouraging Kyrgyz leaders to crack down and contain the problem, and to forget about human rights.

Gapirov says the tactics now on display bear “the Uzbek signature”, and began being applied after President Bakiev had a private meeting with his counterpart Islam Karimov.

Moldaliev believes the only way to check the growth of radicalism is for the state authorities to engage mainstream Muslim clerics in changing hearts and minds.

At the same time, he identifies another failing that needs to be addressed – the inability of local government to manage disputes sensibly, so that a confrontation such as the one about holding a Muslim celebration in Nookat can be prevented from blowing up into a conflict.

An example of this, he said, was the recurring dispute over whether devout Muslim girls should be banned from wearing headscarves in state schools.

“That’s a good illustration of how ordinary believers start to stand up for their rights and become radicalised,” he said.

Venera Sultanova is the pseudonym of a freelance journalist in Kyrgyzstan. Dilbar Ruzadorova is an IWPR-trained reporter.