HT in Central Asia

After the break-up of the Soviet Union, the people of Central Asia coped with economic hardships, further limitations on civil and political freedoms and social disparities, as well as lack of religious education and channels to fulfil their spiritual needs. It was also the time when, after seven decades of official atheism, the Central Asian states suddenly opened their doors to all kinds of religious movements that would fill the vacuum left behind by the Communist system. In Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan alone, the number of mosques, madrassahs and seminaries quadrupled in the first three years of independence, and “various kinds of religious missionaries [including HT] flooded [my emphasis] into the cities and towns of the region” (Khamidov 2003, 2). Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, more than the three other Central Asian countries, also witnessed the vast growth of Christian evangelical churches and the conversion of Muslims to Christianity (Williams 2004; McBrien and Pelkmans 2008;

Peyrouse 2008). For a long-time ‘Muslim atheist’ – a paradoxical expression describing a person in Central Asia who was born Muslim but has not observed the five pillars of Islam – was “a completely ‘natural’ thing” (McBrien and Pelkmans 2008, 87). As a Soviet legacy,

‘Muslimness’ was intimately tied to national identity of Central Asians without much religious content (Williams 2004, 130; McBrien and Pelkmans 2008, 90); an Islamic revival, however, was yet to come to the region. In 1996, 55.3 percent of ethnic Kyrgyz and 87.1 percent of ethnic Uzbeks in Kyrgyzstan identified themselves as Muslims; in 2007, 97.5 percent and 99.1 percent of surveyed ethnic Kyrgyz and Uzbeks respectively reported that they were Muslims (McGlinchey 2009, 17).

For many scholars of different origins, ‘Muslim’ identity and the spiritual needs of Central Asian populations are not the main factors behind HT’s success in the region. Rather, the experts say bad economic conditions, underdeveloped political culture, absence of civil

society to channel public initiatives, limited access to power and widespread suppression of freedom of speech played into the hands of HT to spread its message (ICG 2003a; 2006a;

Khamidov 2003; Mihalka 2006; Karagiannis 2005; 2006b; 2007). HT, while operating in any country, attempts to meet the requirements of the local population; thus its activities and spheres of influence in Central Asia differ to a great extent from those in Europe. The core differences lie in HT helping local populations to overcome economic hardships by setting up mutual aid associations and charity programs (McGlinchey 2009), as well as creating a public space for discussing everyday issues or, as Baran puts it:

“In a region with limited access to a free press, HT’s discussion of everyday issues provides a much needed outlet for news and opinion. HT continuously promotes a message of “justice” against what many Central Asians view as their corrupt and repressive state structures” (Baran 2004, 86).

Furthermore, unlike in Europe, the most effective recruitment of members takes place not on university campuses but through charity activities and in prisons. Since HT is outlawed in all five Central Asian countries, a common tactic became to be arrested, appeal to sympathy from the local populations, get publicity and propagandise in prisons. Because traditionally the Central Asian people, especially in the Ferghana Valley, have a sense of extended family and community, an arrest gets quick publicity and provokes resentment among local residents. In this regard, Baran commented:

“Since the late 1990s, prisons have become the best places to convert people to radical Islam. The vast majority of inmates deeply resent the establishment. There is also a serious torture problem in Central Asian prisons, especially in Uzbekistan. After enduring such treatment, even the least religious individual is susceptible to HT recruitment efforts. Those who are jailed for small offences may develop close contacts with HT members while in prison and over time begin to identify with party ideology.

By the time they leave prison, former petty criminals can become strong Islamists tied to the larger HT” (Baran 2004, 86).

Baran’s (2004) argument was supported by statements from relatives of prisoners, who joined HT in Uzbekistan after being tortured. For example:

“She was asleep with her husband … when a detachment of ten police broke into their flat in southern Tashkent and started beating him where he lay.

“They didn't show us any papers. Four of the men laid into my husband for about 15 minutes until there was blood everywhere," she says. Sitting in the room where it happened, Nabieva says she next saw her husband two months later, at his trial…His real sin, it seems, was to have three sons already in jail. His youngest, Faroukh, was arrested in April 2000 and given seven years in prison. His oldest, Forkhat, was taken from a bus on his way home in April last year. He got eight years. His middle son, Mirzorakhmat, was seized at home ten days later and six months after that his mother visited him

in the Jaslyq detention centre. He had been transferred there, he said, for refusing to plunge his hand into a bowl of excrement at his first prison in Navoi… said he had also been forced to breathe through a urine-soaked pad until he choked, and dropped on to a cement floor by four men from above head height -a manoeuvre known as "the bird", contrived to break a person's ribs. I asked Nabieva why she thought her family had been singled out.

"We haven't been," she said. "There are many families with five sons in jail.

If I had ten they would have taken all ten." As it is, her three were all accused of membership of Hizb ut-Tahrir. They were not members, Nabieva said. "But they are now. They've all joined up in prison" (Whittell 2004, 6).

ICG (2003a) researchers suggest that the majority of – though by no means all – members appear to be from the Ferghana Valley region (the Andijan, Ferghana and Namangan provinces of Uzbekistan; the Sughd province in Tajikistan, and the Osh and Jalalabad provinces of Kyrgyzstan). Due to the clandestine nature of the party and the tendencies of regimes to exaggerate extremist groups’ presence and threats as an excuse for authoritarian responses and policies, the real number of members in Central Asia can only be estimated (ICG 2003a; Esposito 2002, 113). Baran et al. (2006, 24) claimed, “HT is numerically strongest in Uzbekistan, with estimates there ranging from 7,000 up to 60,000 members. There are 3,000-5,000 members in both Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. The number in Kazakhstan is no more than a few hundred.” Karagiannis (2006b, 265) estimated that the number of members in Uzbekistan varied between 10,000 and 15,000, with many more sympathizers; a recent ICG (2009a, 6) report pointed out that Kyrgyz HT membership could be as much as 7,000 to 8,000, of whom some 800 to 2,000 could be women. The official numbers of members in Kyrgyzstan were paradoxically contradictory; while in May 2008 the Kyrgyz State Agency on Religious Affairs claimed membership was about 15,000, in April 2009 the Ministry of Internal Affairs claimed there were only 118 active members and 1,630 supporters (ICG 2009a, 6).

I.1.4.1 Kyrgyzstan

In Kyrgyzstan, the government’s stance on HT has gone in phases. In 2001, Mamayusupov, then-chairman of the State Committee on Religious Affairs, attempted to establish dialogue with HT by bringing its members to the parliament. The talks did not take place, however. According to Kyrgyz authorities, such a meeting would automatically mean recognition of the organization; HT itself was against such talks since working with the

“illegitimate” government contradicted the fundamentals of its ideology (ICG 2003a, 38;

Baran 2004, 108-109). The speaker of the parliament at the time, who was also the Ombudsman of the Kyrgyz Republic, Tursunbai Bakir Uluu, suggested several times in the

press that HT be legalized and its members be acknowledged as part of the electorate. In this regard, ICG suggested:

“The wider policies of the government are probably more important than any attempts to initiate dialogue or intervene in religious structures. Reform of the security services is a key issue and a strong line against abuse of power in arrests and in the courts is vital… Many incidents that the government is quick to label as the work of ’Islamic extremists’ are actually much more about growing organized crime, much of it linked to the drugs trade and lucrative cross-border contraband with Uzbekistan”(ICG 2003a, 38). “There are also vested bureaucratic interests in the government structures that have used the Hizb ut-Tahrir ‘threat’ to broaden their own powers” (ICG 2002, 12).

The government outlawed HT as an extremist organization in November 2003. Since then, members caught distributing literature with extremist content that might instigate religious and ethnic tensions have faced years of imprisonment. An ICG investigation suggested that while prosecuting HT activists, “any evidence linking a person to the HT – party literature, reports by neighbours, or an anonymous tip – are grounds for police action”

(ICG 2009a, 7). The number of HT prosecutions grew from 11 in 2000 (ICG 2003a, 37) to 86 in 2001 and fell to 41 in 2002 (Karagiannis 2005, 138). The numbers of prosecuted HT members after 2002 remain unclear. In October 2008, 32 demonstrators in Nookat region of Kyrgyzstan were arrested as members or sympathizers of HT and were given up to twenty years of imprisonment; in 2009 the Supreme Court dismissed charges against 13 persons and in 2010 the provisional government of Kyrgyzstan, with Roza Otunbaeva as its head announced amnesty for all participants in those events (Veizel 2010). Reportedly in 2009 there were 54 Islamists, including members of HT, Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and Islamic Jihad Union serving time in Kyrgyz prisons for terrorism and extremism (ICG 2009b, 1-14). In 2011, Otunbaeva claimed that the number of HT members in the southern regions of Kyrgyzstan was about 15,000; she said that national security services identified “1,944 members of [this] religious-extremist organisation” but “in reality this number can be significantly higher. They also seized 26 pieces of small arms, 1,610 pieces of ammunition, 111 explosives as well as more than three thousand materials of extremist nature” (Otunbaeva quoted in Zpress.kg 2011).

Early reports on HT’s activities in Kyrgyzstan stressed their prevalence in the southern provinces and the overwhelmingly ethnic Uzbek³ membership of the organization (ICG

3 Grebenschikov (2002) explained the higher number of Uzbeks sympathizing with HT compared with Kyrgyz by the fact that Kyrgyzstan was unable to provide the population in the South with print media, textbooks at school and other channels from which the Uzbek part of population could generate information in their language.

In early 2000s, the informational vacuum that could not be filled by the Kyrgyz officials was quickly filled by

2003a; Karagiannis 2005; Grebenschikov 2002). More recent studies indicated that HT continuously gained support in the northern part of Kyrgyzstan among ethnic Kyrgyz (McGlinchey 2009) and among women (ICG 2009a).

Islamic revivalism in Kyrgyzstan was seen by McGlinchey (2009, 16) as “a product of the failing Kyrgyz state” rather than as “a response to encroaching Western culture”, “a response to encroaching secularism” or “a manifestation of nationalism.” “Prompted by this state failure, Islamic charities have increasingly stepped in to deliver what central governments cannot. Religion provides the shared norms, the social capital, critical for the functioning and growth of these local charities” (McGlinchey 2009, 27). Karagiannis (2005, 144) explained HT’s rise in Central Asia using the social movement paradigm: “It [HT in Kyrgyzstan] provided people with a mechanism for alleviating grievances derived from structural strains in Kyrgyz society; It has mobilized necessary material and human resources;

The party faces an environment that offers political opportunity.” “Facing a failed political and economic system, people join Hizb ut-Tahrir for comfort” (Karagiannis 2005, 146).

Mainly agreeing with Karagiannis’ observation, Mihalka (2006) and McGlinchey (2009) came to opposite conclusions. Since HT failed to take advantage of a grand opportunity to seize power during the political turmoil in March 2005, Mihalka (2005, 149) wrote: “Currently, radical Islam has lost most of its strength in Central Asia and is not showing any real signs of recovery.” McGlinchey (2009, 22) observed that HT, as part of the Islamic revival in Kyrgyzstan, compensated for “the state’s failure” to provide the population with basic human needs like food, shelter and education and became increasingly important to local communities. For example, HT’s activities were largely ignored by the government in December 2006, when the organization openly supported victims of the earthquake in Naryn, a city in north-central Kyrgyzstan. Furthermore, HT’s mutual aid associations are much welcomed by mainly the poor, who stopped hiding their HT sympathies (McGlinchey 2009, 20). McGlinchey’s observations were also supported by a number of cases described by ICG (2009, 10) researchers: “Many HT teachers are said to take active part in the lives of their students – helping to find a husband for the single ones and addressing family problems of those who are married. The party tries to build a good reputation within communities by small-scale initiatives, such as establishing home kindergartens for members. A female activist and strong HT critic said it is hard to oppose the party because it helps so much on the local level.”

HT leaflets, which contained information on urgent political, social, and economic developments in the region