Islamic Superstate of Uzbekistan

Islam Karimov, the Uzbek President, is enigmatic and problematical, for despite sporting a name unmistakably Islamic, his actions puzzle not just Muslims, but also organisations of the world community, the International rights watchdog Human Rights Watch to name but one.  Mentioning God in many of his sentences, and courting both American patronage early this year (March visit to the President of US) and Israeli cooperation and tutelage (2000) is not a problem, as Muslims are allowed to trade, and with the exception of making treaties against fellow Muslims can cooperate with non –Muslims and have done so throughout the ages, under delineation by Muslim law. Yet Karimov draws hefty condemnation from Human Rights Watch regarding the treatment of his own Uzbek citizens, belonging to all the Islamic ‘flavours’.

Busy building strategic international partnerships, Karimov hopes for enough financial assistance and know-how to transform his country into the super -state of the region- comparable to that of a Western country, preferably the U.S or the camouflaged Israel, as he claims, "to build a new life big money is certainly needed".

Karimov’s trip to the USA in March this year at the invitation of U.S President George Bush was enough proof for him that he had ‘arrived,’ with organised top-level talks and meetings with members of Congress, Senate and House of Representatives, members of business circles and the public.

He claims that arrangements between his new partners will mean that “every person living in Uzbekistan, our people will understand well that this opens up a new opportunity for us to build a new relationship with the strongest and most capable state, the USA, and paying attention to its essence and benefits.”

He also maintained that living with borders close to the spartan Taliban types in Afghanistan formerly spawned great fear and insecurity for his subjects.  Perhaps it was because of this that in the wake of the ‘terrorist tide’ he was quick to leap into the U.S. embrace and to daub his own opponents as ‘terrorists’ …ordinary people who, in vigilante groups had succeeded in maintaining security from bandits, which government police had totally failed to do.

Big money from the world, he says will give his people a good and great life, mentioning God again he says, “We will, with God's blessing, get such an assistance. There is one more thing to say, if the USA looks at us in such a way, I think, the Western countries as well, be it Europe or Japan, or other countries, will pay attention to that and their aid will not be inconsiderable either. In short, we are pinning great hopes on this visit. I think, our people will properly understand me.”

For the people who don’t understand him he has a different dream, and this is where he has angered the Human Rights Watch who state that he has extended a personal war on his opponents including now, Uzbek women and their children. In fact it is worse than that. Being in opposition to him, means being picked up as being a ‘suspected’ activist (read ‘terrorist’) and innocent people are, according to the human rights movements, systemically imprisoned and tortured with no proofs, etc.

Two weeks ago Karimov’s police, rounded up female protesters in the Ferghana Valley and the capital, Tashkent, detaining at least 18 women. The same week, a court sentenced four women to prison for alleged membership in a banned religious group. Another four women are currently on trial for similar charges.
 
Marie Struthers, HRW's interim representative in Tashkent says that since the end of the 1990s, Uzbek authorities have conducted a concerted campaign of arrests and convictions against members of various Muslim groups deemed by the state as extremist and posing a threat to regional security.

"This includes very often unlawful arrest, lack of access to independent legal representation, trumped-up charges, witnesses who provide insufficient and contradictory testimony, unpreparedness of lawyers, prosecutors, and judges."

Thousands of men have been detained in the crackdown, but until recently, very few women were targeted for arrest. Struthers says that all this is changing.

"The campaign is characterized by a mounting number of detentions of women, particularly those who wear the headscarf and who demonstrate to protest the government's harsh policy against these men who have been given prison sentences, and to protest the harsh treatments that are accorded ‘religious’ prisoners in Uzbekistan."

On 23 April, HRW reports, Uzbek police detained at least nine women and their children in the capital Tashkent and at least another nine in Margilan, in the Ferghana Valley. Several dozen women in both areas were protesting the persecution of Muslim dissidents and demanding the release of male relatives jailed for alleged links to extremist Islamic opposition groups.

Struthers says the trend doesn't stop with detentions. HRW recently observed two trials of women charged with membership in Hizb-ut-Tahrir.

Hizb-ut-Tahrir, or the Party of Liberation, is an Islamic group calling for the peaceful re-establishment of the Caliphate in Central Asia. It has denounced the U.S.-led antiterrorist campaign in Afghanistan, and its main activities are based around small discussion circles.

On 24th April, a court in Tashkent sentenced four women to prison for alleged membership.Sentences ranged from a two-year suspended sentence to four years in prison. A second similar trial of four other women is continuing in the capital. These trials coincide with an increase in the number of demonstrations held by women protesting against the detention of family members.

"According to international and local human rights organizations, there may be close to 7,000 male prisoners convicted at this time. So it's no surprise that women would protest not only the absence of men from their households, but the harsh treatment accorded to them while they've been detained."

Despite his amiable diplomatic visits to non-Muslim countries to advance his plans, at a recent press conference held in Tashkent during the visit of Iranian President Mohammad Khatami in April, Karimov broadcast that there would be no change in his government's policies. Trying to explain away the wave of arrests and court cases against Uzbek nationals protesting against his harsh treatment of them, Karimov simply justified himself with,

"This is not an example of events that have simply started to happen more often, but a continuous struggle against radical Islamic activities."

The aims of Hizb-ut-Tahrir, Karimov added, "are radical and extremist and we will persecute this organization on Uzbek territory in accordance with our legislation."

If Karimov is to continue with his present policies and attitudes, the Hizb-ut-Tahrir will be the least of his problems.

Tashkent has recently won praise for its cooperation in the U.S.-led campaign against terror and human rights activists are concerned that international criticism of Uzbekistan's poor human rights record has fallen by the wayside in the wake of America’s foreign policies. The government crackdown will only fuel the militancy of the nation, whose communist government has merely been reinstalled in the wake of the fall of communism. Struthers warns if measures are not taken to uphold the religious and human rights of the independent Muslim Uzbek people, extremist groups will mushroom and necessity is the mother of invention.

"If [the repression] continues, it's only going to continue to feed the ground for the fostering of more extremist groups that have no other avenue to voice their peaceful beliefs" said Struthers.

Karimov even tried to soften his reputation for intolerance ahead of his March U.S. visit by ordering an unprecedented ruling, in an Uzbek court, to sentence four policemen to prison sentences for torturing to death a detainee and seriously injuring a second. The country also registered its first rights group, the Independent Human Rights Organization of Uzbekistan.

Critics, however, have argued that such conciliatory gestures were made for the cosmetic benefit of the Western community and do not reflect any true softening of policy in Tashkent.

So where are the people that for whom Karimov is building his Superstate? 

What has he done with his gentle Muslims for whom he intends the splendour of a westernised state?

At the rate he’s going, the Sunni, Shiah, Ismaili or other Muslims, will all be in jail or worse. Or he will have turned them all into warriors with no further patience for discussion.

Perhaps his face-to-face confrontation with the then future leader of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, (not the Hizb-ut-Tahrir!) in the free-wheeling atmosphere of the post-Soviet Union collapse, frightened him. 

In  Autumn 1991, Karimov came to Namangan and agreed to meet some of his opponents. He was joined on the speakers' platform by the Uzbek legendary figure of Jumaboy Admadjonovich Khojiyev, known by the Uzbeks simply as Namangani. 

The tall, bearded young Muslim student challenged the country's boss, an unnerving experience for an iron-fisted leader. 

Someone videotaped the session.

"Karimov was treated fairly respectfully. But he had to pray with them, and they made demands about imposing Islamic law," –treason according to the Uzbekistan of Karimov- said a Western analyst who has seen the tape.

"At one point, you could see Karimov blanch. The crowd was clearly hostile, and Namangani could have done anything he wanted with Karimov at that moment."

But he didn’t harm him. 

Is this, then, the ultimate humiliation which haunts Karimov and spurns him on his drive to superstate success, even if it means removing the very people he claims to be doing it for?

External Links:

Profile of President Islam Karimov

www.victorynewsmagazine.com