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January 16, 2006

Tajikistan: Islamist Group Kept Under Control, BBC Whines

I came across this report from the BBC today, but the article is rather skewed. It refers to Hizb ut-Tahrir, but for some reason only known to itself, it has decided to call the group Hezb ut-Tahrir. This Islamist group, which is banned in most Middle Eastern nations, as well as Russia, Takjikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgistan, aims to set up an Islamic Caliphate and see several autonomous governments be dissolved to achieve its aim. Hizb ut-Tahrir, as we explained earlier exists as an organ of insurrection.

For purposes of review, this is the whole unexpurgated article:

Tajik crackdown on Islamic group
By Ian MacWilliam
BBC News, Central Asia correspondent

Authorities in Tajikistan have said they arrested nearly 100 members of an international Islamic organisation last year. A senior state prosecutor said that many of the members of the Hezb-ut-Tahrir organisation had been sentenced to long jail terms. Two of those detained were high-ranking leaders of the party in Tajikistan.

Islamic groups in Central Asia have been most active in the Ferghana Valley.

Tajikistan's deputy general prosecutor, Abdusami Dadoboyev, told journalists in Dushanbe that 99 Hezb-ut-Tahrir activists were arrested during 2005, including 16 women. Nearly 40 of those arrested have already been tried and sentenced to jail terms of up to 12 years. The rest are in detention awaiting trial.

Human rights concerns

Hezb-ut-Tahrir, the Party of Liberation, was founded in the Middle East in the 1950s. It calls for the restoration of an Islamic caliphate to unite all Muslim lands.

Missionaries began winning followers in Central Asia a decade ago. But all the Muslim republics of the region have now banned the group. The authorities consider followers of Hezb-ut-Tahrir to be dangerous extremists who want to overthrow local governments.

But human rights groups say that most members are innocent believers who do nothing more harmful than distribute religious leaflets. Nevertheless, police in Tajikistan and neighbouring republics have been actively rounding up members of the party in the past few years. Nearly all end up in jail after trials which often fail to meet international standards of justice.

Human rights groups say that many of the several thousand people now in jail for religious reasons in neighbouring Uzbekistan are members of Hezb-ut-Tahrir.

Now for some facts. The BBC appears to derive its information from a report in Interfax, which is also covered by RIA Novosti. The information was given by Deputy Prosecutor General Abdasami Dadoboyev, talking at a news conference today in Dushanbe, capital of Tajikistan.

"In 2005 we opened 74 criminal cases on Hizb ut-Tahrir operations and arrested 99 persons, 16 of them women, in relation to them. Some of them have already been sentenced," he said.

Dadoboyev said that, in 2004, 38 such cases were opened and 97 individuals sentenced.

Dadoboyev said the overwhelming majority of members of the banned party live in the Sogdi region of Tajikistan that borders on the Fergana region of Uzbekistan.

Hizb ut-Tahrir was set up in 1952 in Palestine, and its main objective is to overthrow governments in Muslim countries and create a single Islamic state. It has been blacklisted as an extremist and terrorist organization in several countries.

Intelligence services believe Hizb ut-Tahrir may have a following of up to 2,000 in Tajikistan.

RIA Novosti states that Hizb ut-Tahrir was banned in Tajikistan in 2001, and says "The organization's mission is to remove all non-Islamic governments and to establish a global caliphate, or united Muslim state."

The Moscow Times states:

Authorities in Tajikistan are holding the No. 2 leader of a banned radical Islamic group, an official said Monday.

A probe into several suspected members of the Hizb-ut-Tahrir party who were arrested last year also revealed that some of the group's regional leaders were among them, Deputy Prosecutor General Abdusami Dadabayev said. He did not say exactly when the arrests were made and gave no further details.

Hizb-ut-Tahrir, which advocates creating a worldwide Islamic state, is banned in Russia, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.

The issue of Hizb ut-Tahrir is taken very seriously in Tajikistan, which shares a porous southern border with Afghanistan and has already got a problem with smuggling of drugs. During the rule of the Taliban, a group calling itself the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), a US-designated terrorist organisation, threatened to destabilise the nation, a threat which diminished following the US invasion.

Tajikistan shares borders with Kyrgistan and Uzbekistan. Near the Uzbek border is the region of Sogdi, or Sugd. The Sogdi region, where many Hizb ut-Tahrir followers come from, is also the home to three Tajiks who ended up in Guantanamo Bay, according to a report by Human Rights Watch. Tajikistan's autocratic president, Emomali Rahmonov, is now a US ally in the "War on Terror", and the nation appears threatened by Islamist extremists.

On October 19 2005, Tajikistan banned the hijab, or Muslim headscarf in schools, claiming it was unconstitutional, but the move was seen as political. It was denounced by Tajikistan's Islamic Renaissance Party. This party, established in 1991, is apparently the only Islamic party in former Soviet Centrral Asia. The party has had members jailed by the government, including its leader, who was jailed for 16 years for polygamy, in January 2004.

Uzbekistan is similarly ruled by a harsh leader, Karimov. Its ambassador to Tajikistan is Shoqosim Shoislomov, who said last monthin a reply to a question about Hizb ut-Tahrir:

If you want to fight against religious extremism, you should start with Hizb ut-Tahrir. But look at England itself. This summer it became a target of terrorist attacks. Hizb ut-Tahrir has its headquarter in London. [The British government] has given complete freedom to them. How can you understand it? We [the Uzbek government] has offered to everybody to fight against Hizb ut-Tahrir. As you see, many states have made a correct assessment of Hizb ut-Tahrir. But there are some governments, which consider themselves democratic, who gave complete freedom to Hizb ut-Tahrir. How can we treat an organization that comes from those countries and plot terrorist attacks on our territory? It's difficult to understand this. And they try to blame us for something.

Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgistan share borders, and all three countries, like Russia, have decided that Hizb ut-Tahrir represents a threat to their stability. There have been cases in all countries of people who are accused without substantiation of being Hizb ut-Tahrir members and jailed.

In 2003, about 34 Hizb ut-Tahrir members were jailed in Tajikistan. This increased to 70 in 2004, with nine receiving sentences in September of 13 to 15 years' jail for crimes of organising a criminal group, inciting national, racial, religious and ethnic strife. And in 2005, as we have now been told, 99 were arrested in 2005.

The Uzbek ambassador in Tajikistan cannot understand Britain's complacency regarding Hizb ut-Tahrir. The UK government is aiming to have it banned, in a new anti-terror bill being discussed in parliament's upper house. Both the Muslim Council for Britain and the Muslim Association for Britain have tried to prevent the government going ahead with this move. The MAB have even threatened that there will be rioting by young people on the streets, should Hizb ut-Tahrir become outlawed. Maybe the people at the BBC have been spending too much time dealing with Iqbal Sacranie (MCB secretary general), and have bought into the view pushed by our "Muslim representatives" or "activists", that Hizb ut Tahrir is wholesome. Hizb ut-Tahrir represents a far greater threat than the BBC's image of harmless leafleting implies.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at January 16, 2006 5:42 PM

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Posted by: Franze at January 16, 2006 6:32 PM

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