Women linked to Islamic groups rounded up

The international NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) has warned that the government of Uzbekistan is extending its crackdown against "independent" Muslims to include women. International and local human rights experts estimate 7,000 independent Muslims have already been sentenced to up to 20 years in prison for their religious beliefs, affiliations, and practices in the Central Asian country. "We are witnessing an increase in the number of trials involving independent Muslim women," HRW representative, Marie Struthers told IRIN from the Uzbek capital Tashkent on Thursday. "This coincides with an increase in the number of demonstrations being held by such women protesting against the detention of their husbands or family members," she explained. However, the campaign against independent Muslims - those who practice outside state-sanctioned Islamic institutions - is hardly new. Religion is closely monitored in this predominately Muslim state of 25 million. The government of Islam Karimov, which perceives independent Muslims as a threat to the regime's hold on power, began what many view as an institutionalised crackdown by the state in late 1997. Until recently, however, few women had been arrested. "The authorities in Uzbekistan have already detained thousands of men for their affiliation with peaceful Islamic groups," HRW executive director for Europe and Central Asia, Elizabeth Anderson said in a statement on Wednesday. "Now they're rounding up women," she exclaimed. Describing the action as "routine", Struthers said for several weeks there had been an increase in the number of women put under detention in Tashkent and the Ferghana Valley - a particularly volatile region encompassing the territories of Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Struthers maintained the women were being held anywhere from a few hours to as much as 60 days, adding dozens had been detained in the past two weeks alone. Some stand accused of membership in Hizb ut-Tahrir, a banned Islamic group, while others have relatives who are in jail for their religious affiliations, she noted. But chairman of the Human Rights Society of Uzbekistan, Tolib Yakubov told IRIN the crackdown comes as no surprise. "We learned that the courts in Uzbekistan were going to try and convict independent Muslim women and now they are doing it," he said. Recalling the repressive Soviet era, the activist said the Uzbek government wants to strike a blow not only against religious extremism, but on religion itself. According to HRW, on 23 April, police broke up two protests by several dozen women in Tashkent's old city and in Margilan, a city in the Ferghana Valley. The women were protesting against the state's harsh actions against independent Muslims. Many were also demanding the release of their male relatives who are serving prison terms for their religious associations. Yakubov recalled how one wife of such a prisoner incarcerated at the Jaslyk prison in the northwest of the country came to see him. "She told me that she could barely recognise her husband. He had grown into a skeleton," he exclaimed. Police in the Uzbek capital detained between nine and eighteen women and their children - including babies during the April protests. Journalists and others who witnessed the incident told HRW that officers descended upon the group, herded many of the protestors onto buses, and took them to an undisclosed location. In Margilan, police detained at least nine women and dispersed about forty-five others. The watchdog group said authorities currently require scores of overtly pious Muslim women, particularly those who wear headscarves partially covering their faces, to sign monthly or even weekly statements pledging not to participate in unauthorised meetings or gatherings and not to join any "religious sects." The question now is whether this latest extension of the crackdown will intensify. "We've seen a steady rise in the number of people, particularly women, willing to risk the enormously dangerous move of peacefully voicing their dissent," Anderson explained. "The latest round of detentions shows that the government does not intend to relent on the campaign against independent Islam," she warned. Commenting on the current atmosphere in the country, Yakubov said mostly only older people attended mosque now given a generalised fear of the government. "There is also a high level of popular dissatisfaction with the government because in many ways they continue to conduct themselves in the old Soviet way," he maintained. "What difference is there in attending a state-approved mosque or a private mosque when the government has such a policy?," he asked. While Tashkent has been praised for its contribution on the war against terrorism following the events of 11 September - allowing hundreds of US and other troops taking part in Afghan operations to be based there - rights groups are now concerned that international criticism of the country's human rights record has fallen by the way side as a result. According to HRW, Uzbekistan continues to suffer from a wide array of human rights abuses, including arbitrary arrests, mass deportations, police brutality, torture, detentions, and pushing thousands of moderate Muslims along the road towards extremism. [For a complete copy of the HRW report on Uzbekistan for 2002 Click here]