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August 9, 2006

Tajikistan: Death Of Leader of Central Asia's Only Islamic Party

The Islamic Renaissance Party (Nahzati Islomi Tojikiston), founded in 1991, is the only Islamic party in former Soviet Central Asia. Based in Tajikistan, its current leader was Said Abdullo Nuri. Now, according to RIA Novosti, Radio Free Europe, Reuters, Itar-Tass and Eurasianet, Said Abdullo Nuri has died, aged 59 (or 60), after a long illness.

Nuri (pictured below) had been the leader of the Islamist forces in a 1992-97 civil war, but had then led a reconciliation committee. During the years of Soviet occupation, he had first been investigated by security services in 1973, and over the next 15 years he was arrested several times, for promoting Islamic ideas, and he had been thought to be setting up an Islamic underground resistance.

In 1974 he helped to organize the youth group Nahzati Islomi (Islamic Revival) which was banned. Before the 1992 civil war, he was editor-in-chief of Minbari Islam, (Islamic Tribune) a newspaper. When the civil war started, he and associates had fled outside the country, where they still had influence on the fighting.

The party he headed and had helped to found, the Islamic Renaissance Party, had been strong when the first parliamentary elections were held in February 2000, and though it did not gain first place, it was the dominant opposition party. Because of ill health, Nuri did not stand as a presidential candiate, and the job went to Emomali Rakhmonov. However, Nuri's IRP party had recently been beset by problems, due to conflicts with the government.

Nuri himself had been accused of being linked to Osama bin Laden, allegations which he vigorously denied in 2002. In an interview in January this year, he claimed that there was official corruption at the Dushanbe waterworks, which led to him being charged with slander.

When the government introduced a ban on the Hijab (Muslim headscarf) in October 19 last year, it was his party which led the opposition to the ruling.

In January 2004, the Supreme Court sentenced the deputy chairman of the Islamic Renaissance party, Shamsuddin Shamsuddinov, to 16 years in prison for polygamy, organising an armed criminal group during the country's civil war, and illegally crossing the border. He maintained that he had been tortured and electrocuted after his arrest in May 2003. Three other party members were jailed as his accomplices.

President Emomali Rakhmonov, leader of the Hizbi Demokrati-Khalkii Tojikston (the People's Democratic Party of Tajikistan), has jailed several other members of the Islamic Renaissance Party. Last year, after his part in elections, Saifiddin Faizov of the Islamic Renaissance Party was charged with hooliganism for allegedly using foul language in a mosque, states Human Rights Watch. In July, Abdulvose Abdujalilov, another IRP member was briefly detained on charges of teaching Islam to minors without legal authorization.

So despite claims in some accounts that he has left behind a "powerful legacy", his party is not thriving. It is the third largest party, and has 25,000 members. But it is the sole Islamic party in all of the Commonwealth or Independent States in Central Asia. The party is always vulnerable to the whims of the existing government.

Nuri will be buried at noon on August 10 at the Khazrati-Mavlono mosque outside Dushanbe, capital of Tajikistan.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at August 9, 2006 7:17 PM

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