UNHCR may assist other Uzbek asylum-seekers

Following the recognition last week by the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Kazakhstan of Imam Abidkhan Nazarov, who is wanted in neighbouring Uzbekistan, the agency has said it is considering offering refugee status to another 60 asylum-seekers from Uzbekistan. UNHCR assisted Nazarov in leaving Kazakhstan in order to live under political asylum in an undisclosed third country. The fugitive had been living secretly in Kazakhstan for the last eight years following moves by Uzbek authorities to arrest him on charges of religious extremism and having connections with the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU); an organisation labelled as terrorist by the Uzbek government and the US. “Right now we [UNHCR] are in the process of interviewing them [the 60 Uzbek asylum-seekers]. Their own histories are important and we are going to review their claims and all information available,” Cesar Dubon, UNHCR’s acting Chief of Mission in Kazakhstan, told IRIN from the business capital Almaty on Wednesday. “We have not filed a conclusion yet, we are going to interview each person two or three times and we are then going to cross check with different sources like Amnesty International [AI] and human rights groups before we conclude the research,” he added. Eight years ago Uzbek authorities began a campaign against imams who resisted government control. Uzbekistan is 88 percent Muslim. “We have given the man [Nazarov] the mandate of refugee status and asylum to a third country,” Dubon commented. Nazarov gained popularity in the late 1980s and was an influential preacher in Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, in the 1990s when thousands of people would gather at the city’s Tokhtaboi Mosque to listen to his sermons. He spoke against corruption, argued in favour of freedom of speech and encouraged women to attend mosques. On Friday, Tashkent instructed UNHCR to end its mission to Uzbekistan on the basis that it had finished its work in the republic. Relations between Uzbekistan and the UN refugee agency have been strained since May 2005 when 450 people fled the eastern Uzbek town of Andijan and claimed asylum in neighbouring Kyrgyzstan. UNHCR said it stood by its decision to assist Nazarov. “I can’t say what kind of effect this will have, but we consider this [being given refugee status] to be an individual’s right and it is between the UN and the individuals, not politics between countries,” Dubon added.