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May 17, 2005 | Tuesday | Rabi-us-Sani 8, 1426
Brutality, poverty fuel unrest in Uzbekistan By Nick Paton Walsh MOSCOW: The tense hush that filled the empty back streets of Namangan spoke of the city’s tortured youth. One of the main cities in the Ferghana valley, the impoverished eastern side of Uzbekistan, Namangan has born much of the repression meted out to Islamists by the central Asian state’s regime. In a typically picturesque Uzbek courtyard, Hakimjon Noredinov, 68, clutched a picture of his eldest son, Nozemjon, 33. Mr Noredinov, a retired teacher, became a human rights activist after his son was left for dead by the Uzbek security services, his skull heavily battered. The injuries left him screaming at night, forcing his father to send him off to an asylum. Abdukhail, 28, a neighbour, also told his story: he was abducted from work in the fields in August 2002 and sentenced to 16 years for “trying to overthrow the constitutional structures”. His father told the Guardian in early 2003 how he had seen his son for the first time since his arrest, crippled on a hospital stretcher. His eyes were dark bruised pools, his head battered and his tongue so badly swollen he could only splutter that he had “been kept in water for a long time”. His haemorrhoids bled constantly. Such torture stories are common in the Ferghana region. The constant repression has distanced its inhabitants from the central government and made them more reliant on neighbouring Kyrgyzstan, a source of trade that provides some relief from their extreme poverty. Official attacks against minorities in the early 1990s caused two independence parties to spring up in the region, Birlik and Erk. In July 1992, Islam Karimov, the president of Uzbekistan, cracked down on them and on the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), which seeks to establish an Islamist state in Ferghana and is named as a terrorist group by the US. The authorities have remained highly suspicious of any Islamist or opposition activity in the area. Since 1998 they have focused on Hizb-ut Tahrir, an Islamic group whose members were labelled as “terrorists” by Mr Karimov and blamed for a series of bombings in the country. As part of the crackdown, 7,000 people are believed to have been imprisoned and there are an estimated 600 political arrests a year. While the IMU has been widely declared a terrorist organisation, Washington has only expressed concern at some of the statements by Hizb-ut Tahrir, which espouses peaceful ways towards the creation of an Islamic society. But the Uzbek authorities blamed Hizb-ut Tahrir for a series of bomb blasts — which the group denied — and accused Al Qaeda-linked groups of being behind the attacks. Recently the authorities widened their focus to include the Muslim group Akramiya, which appears to base its ideology more on economics than religious dogma. The arrest of 23 of its members sparked Friday’s unrest in Andijan. Alison Gill, Human Rights Watch’s representative in Uzbekistan, said: “They are still going after Hizb-ut Tahrir, but they do seem to be casting the net wider, and Akramiya are getting swept up in that.” The trial of the 23 Andijan businessmen began in February, but last week sparked wide protests in the town that led to its delay. The defendants also went on hunger strike. Akramism was founded by a maths teacher, Akram Yuldashev, whose 1992 pamphlet, entitled The Way to Sacred Islam, led to his repeated arrest and jailing. The government claimed that Akramiya was an extremist group with ties to Hizb-ut Tahrir. Yet others have claimed that Akramiya is a splinter group from Hizb-ut Tahrir which tried to stop young people from joining the latter organisation. Akramiya suggests that economic success and prosperity is the key to an Islamic way of life, and that part of business profits should be diverted to help the poor. Local media reported that the 23 businessmen had set up a construction company to give local people jobs, yet they were quickly arrested. Mr Yuldashev was jailed for 17 years in 1999, but his wife was called as a defence witness at the trial of the 23. She said that her husband’s book forbade Muslims from acting against the authorities. “Acting against the ruler means acting against Allah’s will,” she quoted him. The former UK ambassador to Tashkent, Craig Murray, said: “I know these people and have met them. They do not have a particularly strong Islamic bent and are more interested in greater economic freedom. They are Turkey, not the Taliban.” The Ferghana Valley spans neighbouring Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, with Uzbeks having strong bonds with the Kyrgyz. In the town of Karasuu, where violence flared on Saturday night, the authorities had cut off bridges that provided access to Kyrgyzstan’s bountiful markets. One of the first acts of the rioters was to tear down the barbed wire that blocked the bridge, allowing access across the border, the Russian news agency Interfax said.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service |  |

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