|
Is mullah latest Uzbek KGB kidnapping victim?
By Igor Rotar
Forum 18 News Service (21.10.2003)/ HRWF Int. (22.10.2003) C Website: http://www.hrwf.net/ - Email: info@hrwf.net - More than six weeks after he was kidnapped in the town of Uzgen in Osh region of southern Kyrgyzstan, there is still no sign of local mullah Sadykjan Rahmanov. "He is simply a believer who has never been involved in politics," his brother Salimjon Rahmanov told Forum 18 News Service in Uzgen on 16 October. Salimjon expressed the strong belief that his brother had been kidnapped by the Uzbek secret police, a view shared by local officials. "The investigation's main line of inquiry is that Sadykjan Rahmanov has been kidnapped by the Uzbek special services," the deputy head of Uzgen district Mamatali Turgunbayev told Forum 18 the same day. Uzbek security officials have denied all knowledge of the kidnapping.
In the wake of Sadykjan Rahmanov's abduction from a bus station in Uzgen on 7 September, local police have always said the evidence they have gathered indicates the kidnappers were security officers from the nearby Namangan region of Uzbekistan. According to the Uzgen police, the car in which Rahmanov was abducted was purchased six months ago by a Namangan security officer. Uzbek officials say that officer has since been transferred to a distant region of Uzbekistan.
In 1993 Sadykjan trained at a medresseh (Islamic school) in Namangan, Salimjon Rahmanov told Forum 18. He added that his brother had organised a haj pilgrimage to Mecca for Uzgen residents and was held in great respect by those living in the town.
Turgunbayev speculated that Sadykjan Rahmanov was probably kidnapped because the Uzbek authorities suspect him of links with the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), a violent movement that has been seeking to overthrow the regime of Uzbek President Islam Karimov and replace it with an Islamic government. "Sadykjan Rahmanov was also under surveillance by the Kyrgyz National Security Committee [the former KGB]," Turgunbayev told Forum 18. "In Namangan he studied at an underground medresseh with one of the current IMU leaders, Tohir Yuldashev. There were rumours that during his annual haj pilgrimages he met IMU leaders and even that Yuldashev appointed him the emir [spiritual and secular leader] of south Kyrgyzstan."
Turgunbayev complained about the way the Uzbek National Security Service (the former KGB) operates freely within his country. "The Uzbek special services act in Kyrgyzstan as if they are at home and do not even bother to agree their actions with us," he told Forum 18. "Usually, Tashkent sends onto our territory Uzbeks who were born in southern Kyrgyzstan and who then obtained Uzbek citizenship and started working for the Uzbek special services."
He pointed out that this was the third case of such a kidnapping in Osh region. All those kidnapped were, he said, devout believers. The head of the human rights organisation Justice in Jalal-abad region Valeri Uleyev agreed that all those seized were devout believers. He told Forum 18 in Jalal-abad on 15 October that his organisation had recorded three further such kidnapping cases, bringing to at least six the number of Kyrgyz citizens kidnapped in southern Kyrgyzstan by the Uzbek secret police.
Salimjon Rahmanov warned of popular local anger about his brother's abduction. "If Sadykjan does not return home, then I will find it very hard to dissuade people from spontaneous demonstrations," he told Forum 18. "Already a number of Uzgen residents have come to me suggesting that they block the road between Osh and Jalal-abad [the main city in south Kyrgyzstan] as a protest against my brother's kidnapping. But so far I
have managed to hold people back from these desperate measures."
Turgunbayev feared that Sadykjan Rahmanov's abduction might lead to outbreaks of violence between ethnic Uzbeks and Kyrgyz in the district. "The Uzgen district is the most vulnerable place in the whole of Kyrgyzstan," he told Forum 18. He said it was there, in 1990, that the bloodiest conflicts between Uzbeks and Kyrgyz took place. One of the Rahmanov brothers died during these outbreaks of violence. "The Rahmanovs, like most Uzgen residents, are Uzbeks, while most of those working as police officers are Kyrgyz."
Source: http://www.forum18.org/
Back to the Table of Contents
Official begins destruction of six rural mosques
By Igor Rotar
Forum 18 News Service (21.10.2003)/ HRWF Int. (22.10.2003) C Website: http://www.hrwf.net/ - Email: info@hrwf.net - Six mosques closed down earlier this year in a district of Jalal-abad region of southern Kyrgyzstan are now being destroyed on the orders of the head of the local administration, the leader of the regional Muslim spiritual administration Dilmurat haji Orozov complained to Forum 18 News Service on 14 October in Jalal-abad.
The six mosques - out of a total of nine - are located within the territory controlled by Asan Erinbayev, head of Karadarya rural district, 30 kilometres (20 miles) west of Jalal-abad. Erinbayev justified the destruction of the mosques, claiming to Forum 18 on 14 October in the village of Karadarya that they had been built illegally on state-owned land.
However, Orozov continues to challenge Erinbayev's claim. He insisted that at the start of the 1990s, when land from collective farms was redistributed, the sites were handed over so that mosques could be built. "Before Erinbayev, all the heads of the district believed the mosques were functioning legally," Orozov told Forum 18. He said all the mosques were registered at the government's committee for religious affairs. "Yet Erinbayev is still flagrantly flouting the laws. I simply don't know what to do. All I can do is go to Karadarya and fight it out with him."
Erinbayev closed the mosques in May, making no attempt to hide his decision. He claimed that in addition to their being built on state-owned land, the imams in different mosques were preaching contradictory views and some were performing marriage ceremonies before the bride and groom had registered at the registry office. "Now that the mosques have been closed, I can monitor the activities of the imams on my territory," he admitted openly to Forum 18 back in May (see F18News 22 May 2003).
The Karadarya district stretches for around 25 kilometres (15 miles) and local Muslims, who asked not to be identified, told Forum 18 that it is now very difficult for elderly believers to reach the remaining functioning mosques. They maintained that Erinbayev believed he could operate with complete impunity because his brother, Baimat Erinbayev, is a deputy of the regional assembly. They also alleged that Baimat Erinbayev is "one of the most influential mafia members in the region".
Source: http://www.forum18.org/
Back to the Table of Contents
Kyrgyz authorities concerned about growing extremism
Interfax (13.08.2003)/ HRWF Int. (20.08.2003) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Extremist organizations have stepped up their activities in Kyrgyzstan, Sadyrbek Kachkynbayev, a leading expert in religion from the Dzhalal-Abad regional authorities told journalists on Wednesday.
He said 17 instances of the distribution of extremist religious literature were revealed in Kyrgyzstan in the first half of 2003. Criminal cases were started on six occasions and 1,500 people have been put under observation by law-enforcement agencies. In addition, 12 books and magazines as well as 300 extremist religious leaflets were also seized.
Since January, over 50 criminal cases have been initiated against activists of the Hizb-ut-Tahrir extremist party, which is banned in Central Asia, law-enforcement agencies report.
Kyrgyz law enforcement believes that the party is trying to win popular support by infiltrating their people into state agencies, thus establishing a radical Islamic regime.
The number of Hizb-ut-Tahrir supporters in Kyrgyzstan exceeds 5,000, according to special service estimates.
Back to the Table of Contents
Campaign to close down Pentecostal Church?
by Igor Rotar
Forum 18 News Service (17.06.2003)/ HRWF Int. (24.06.2003) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - A senior pastor of the Pentecostal Church of Jesus Christ has accused the authorities of launching a campaign against it in recent months, using any excuses to close down the Church and its affiliates in various parts of Kyrgyzstan. Vasili Kuzin, pastor of the church in the capital Bishkek, told Forum 18 News Service on 13 June that congregations in Karakol and Osh have been ordered closed after registration was denied on various pretexts, while his Bishkek church is under threat. "We have not managed to register our affiliates in the provinces and the authorities are taking active advantage of that," he complained.
In Bishkek, the authorities have threatened to cut off electricity and water to the church because the buildings in which the church is based supposedly fail to meet building standards. "But our church in Bishkek is registered with the government's Committee for Religious Affairs and so the authorities are hard-pressed to find genuine reasons to put pressure on us here," Pastor Kuzin told Forum 18.
On 4 June two officials of the religious affairs committee visited the church in Karakol, a town on the shores of Lake Isyk-kul in north-west Kyrgyzstan. They had given no prior notification of their visit. They told Alima Shvidko, who pastors the congregation with her husband Dennis, that the church should be closed from that day because it was not registered. According to Shvidko, the church had submitted its registration application to the religious affairs committee in 1998, but officials had never processed it. "They keep saying there is something wrong with the papers, but won't say what needs to be done to put them right," she told Forum 18 from Karakol on 5 June.
At the beginning of this year, the church re-submitted its papers. However, when they submitted the registration application, the chief specialist at the committee told them the Church of Jesus Christ was a "monster" which they would deal with very shortly. Soon afterwards the committee responded that the registration papers had not been drawn up correctly, although the church maintains it had rectified all the previous errors.
The Church of Jesus Christ in Osh in southern Kyrgyzstan, which has existed for seven years and now has some 400 members, is experiencing similar problems. The church was closed down by the authorities in April for operating without registration. The church's pastor Sergei Makarov had submitted all the documents required for registration to the Committee for Religious Affairs two years ago. One year ago Makarov was told to amend the papers, which he did.
Four months ago, the pastor had a meeting with religious affairs official Botoev, who said the committee was satisfied with the papers and had decided to reregister the church. He said it was sending all the papers to the Osh religious affairs committee and that in two months Makarov's church would be registered. Now that same committee has closed down the church because the church does not have the right papers. Officials gave no written notification of the closure.
After the Osh church's closure its members began to meet in private apartments. However, according to Kuzin, he received a telephone call from the religious affairs committee warning him that such meetings were inadmissible and threatening that the Bishkek church would lose its registered status if church members in Osh did not stop meeting in apartments.
Besides refusing registration, the authorities are trying to put pressure on their churches in other ways, Pastor Shvidko told Forum 18. For example, the authorities claim the building in which the Karakol church is based does not conform to building standards, while the pastor of the Osh church is being told to pay 20,000 US dollars for the land on which the church is situated.
Kyrgyzstan's religion law does not make registration compulsory. However, registration of a religious association is required under a presidential decree dated 14 November 1996 "On measures relating to the religious rights of citizens of the Kyrgyz Republic". According to this decree "Religious organisations and their associations are required to undergo registration at the state commission for religious affairs, under the auspices of the government of the Kyrgyz Republic. The activity of religious organisations that are not registered is forbidden."
Under Kyrgyz law, the presidential decree holds "more weight" than the law. However in practice the authorities have almost never obstructed the activity of unregistered religious associations. For example, in the south of the country only around half the functioning mosques are registered with the religious affairs committee. Nor do Baptists who refuse to register on principle experience any difficulties. Unlike other Central Asian republics, no members of unregistered religious communities are known to have been prosecuted under the code of administrative offences.
"I am aware of the problem of the affiliates of the Church of Jesus Christ in Osh and Karakol," the chairman of the Committee for Religious Affairs Murmurzak Mamayusupov, told Forum 18 from Bishkek on 13 June. "No-one is putting obstacles in the way of their registration. Moreover, as a rule we try not to confront religious organisations that are operating without registration." He maintained that his committee has to take account of the "complexity of the situation" in the south of the country, where "Islamic fundamentalist groups" are active. "If we close our eyes to unregistered Christian associations, then we will have to pursue the same policy towards Islamic radicals."
Pastor Kuzin claims the Church of Jesus Christ is one of the fastest growing Protestant Churches in Kyrgyzstan, with around 9,500 members and some 20 affiliate churches in various parts of the country. He maintains that the main reason that the authorities feel no love for the church is its popularity with the native, historically Muslim population. He says around 30 per cent of the church's members are ethnic Kyrgyz.
http://www.forum18.org/
Back to the Table of Contents
Islamic headscarves arouse school director's anger
by Igor Rotar
Forum 18 News Service (12.05.2003)/ HRWF Int. (15.05.2003) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Six Muslims whose 14- and 15-year-old daughters have encountered problems for wearing the Islamic headscarf, the hijab, in school in the town of Karasu near the southern town of Osh have appealed for help to the imam of the town's central mosque. The imam's son Roshad Kamalov told Forum 18 News Service on 10 May that the parents had come to his father after Friday prayers on 18 April to complain that the director of the Lomonosov school where the girls study, Khalima Ibragimova, had invited their children to the staff room where a police officer with responsibility for minors was present. Ibragimova and the police officer searched the girls' bags and confiscated religious literature they found there. Ibragimova then told the girls she would exclude them from school if they did not stop wearing the hijab. When the girls protested, the police officer cited the Koran, telling them: "Remember, I am for Allah and the prophet!"
Speaking to Forum 18 in Karasu on 10 May, Ibragimova defended her actions, saying she could see nothing unlawful in them. She also categorically denied that she was following instructions from her superiors. "I am led only by my own experience of working as a school teacher. There is a school uniform in Kyrgyzstan that is obligatory for all schoolchildren," she insisted. When Forum 18 commented that the girls attended school in their school uniform, and that the school rules place no restriction on head gear, Ibragimova replied: "If the law on education states that schoolgirls have the right to wear the hijab, then I will be governed by that."
She also claimed that the girls' parents were members of the Islamist party Hizb-ut-Tahrir, and that soon after the incident someone had scattered leaflets around the school from that organisation, which is banned in Kyrgyzstan.
"A new campaign in the battle against Hizb-ut-Tahrir has now been launched in Kyrgyzstan," the director of the international Islamic centre, the former mufti of Kyrgyzstan Saijan Kamaluddin, told Forum 18 in Karasu on 10 May. "Several officials in rural areas are trying to gain favour and do things they were not asked to do." He quoted what he said was a common Uzbek saying about such people: "He was asked to bring a tyubeteika (skull-cap), but he brought a head."
Reports of threats to schoolgirls who wear the hijab come as other schools in southern Kyrgyzstan are cracking down on Muslim pupils who pray during school hours (see separate F18News article).
Kyrgyzstan's senior religious affairs official denies there is any nationwide campaign against Islamic practice in schools. "I categorically deny that there have been any orders from above to expose schoolchildren who follow Islam," the head of the committee for religious affairs, Mumurzak Mamayusupov, told Forum 18 on 12 May from the capital Bishkek. "This is an initiative of local officials. The schoolgirls have the right to wear the hijab to school." He said his office had already heard about the cases known to Forum 18. "But unfortunately we did not know the addresses of the schools where this was happening. Write and tell us the address of these schools and we will sort it out."
http://www.forum18.org/
Back to the Table of Contents
No prayers in school, Muslim children told
by Igor Rotar and Abdumalik Sharipov
Forum 18 News Service (12.05.2003)/ HRWF Int. (15.05.2003) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Muslim pupils who perform daily prayers complain they are now being persecuted in schools in the town of Bazar-Kurgan, 30 kilometres (20 miles) west of the city of Jalal-abad in southern Kyrgyzstan, where ethnic Uzbeks make up around 80 per cent of the population. "On 18 April the school director, Torajan Jurayev, entered Class 1 of the Khamza school, at which my daughter Omina Batirova is a student, and asked who practised Islam," local resident Salimakhar Batirova told Forum 18 News Service on 6 May in Bazar-Kurgan. She reported that five pupils came to the front of the class, whereupon the director wrote down their names and left. "Then the teacher, Mashrapkhan Isakulova, started to hit the children on their heads and faces. She told them to conceal the fact that they were carrying out Islamic practices. She kept the children in after lessons and sent for their parents."
Omina Batirova confirmed to Forum 18 that she had been beaten. She said the teacher had told them the order to expose the pupils practising Islam had come from high up. Isakulova told the students that other pupils would keep an eye on them, including when they were at home, and that if they continued to practice Islam they would be turned over to the police.
However, the school director denies that there has been such an order from high up. "I have the right to know what pupils are involved in, in case they get involved in various religious movements," Jurayev told Forum 18 on 6 May.
A similar incident took place in Bazar-Kurgan's School Number 3. A ten-year-old pupil, Mamijan Makhmajanov, told Forum 18 on 9 May that he and his classmate Numajan Akhmajanov had been called in by their head teacher Rovshan Akhmedov on 20 April. The head teacher immediately asked the children if it was true that they were "Wahhabis", a term widely but inaccurately used in Central Asia to denote Islamic fundamentalists. Akhmedov told the pupils they could perform their prayers only once they had finished school. "Alisher Navoi must be your prophet," he told the children, referring to the fifteenth century local poet.
Yet Akhmedov denied to Forum 18 that he had forbidden pupils to carry out religious rituals. "I just wanted one thing: that the children should not just study Islam, but their other lessons as well," he insisted. "They were learning virtually nothing in school, and were trading at the market instead."
Akhmedov's claim has been at least partially confirmed. The mother of one of the boys, Makhira Khaldarova, admitted that the children hardly attend school at all. "Our husbands are members of Hizb-ut-Tahrir," she told Forum 18, referring to the radical Islamist organisation - banned in Kyrgyzstan - which calls on Muslims worldwide to unite under a single caliphate. "The teachers constantly tell our children what a dreadful organisation it is, and so we decided that it would be better if they did not go to school and instead learnt a trade at the market."
Speaking to Forum 18 on 9 May, the imam-hatyb of the central mosque in Bazar-Kurgan, Takhtsam Satvaldiyev, said he had heard that pressure was being put on children who followed Islam. He believed that this pressure had been initiated by the district authorities.
"At the beginning of April the regional administration held a conference on religious extremism which was attended by district leaders and imams," the chairman of the Bazar-Kurgan section of the Jalal-abad human rights organisation Justice, Azimjan Askarov, told Forum 18 on 9 May. "A decision was taken at the conference to wage a widescale war on religious extremism, making use of teachers and imams." He said he believed the incidents in Bazar-Kurgan were connected with the conference. He added that there is "some information" that the campaign against school pupils has got under way in other districts of Jalal-abad region. He said he had heard that school teachers have also questioned pupils who observe Islamic rituals in the mountain village of Arslanbob, 100 kilometres (60 miles) north of Jalal-abad.
It appears a campaign to expose pupils who observe Islamic rituals has indeed been launched throughout the whole of southern Kyrgyzstan. Similar incidents have been recorded in Osh region, which neighbours Jalal-abad region, where schoolgirls who wear the Islamic headscarf, the hijab, have been facing pressure (see separate F18News article). It is far from coincidental that such a campaign has been initiated in southern Kyrgyzstan. Ethnic Uzbeks make up about 30 per cent of the population, and are generally far more religiously active than the formerly nomadic Kyrgyz. It is in the predominantly Uzbek districts of southern Kyrgyzstan that Hizb-ut-Tahrir is most active.
"I myself am a believer and say prayers five times a day," the head of the Bazar-Kurgan district administration Khaldarabai Shamsuddinov told Forum 18 on 9 May. "I am just delighted that schoolchildren are observing all the religious rituals. And so I categorically deny that we have given an order to find out which pupils are studying Islam." He denied that anything was said at the Jalal-abad conference about stopping people from carrying out religious rituals. "We are simply concerned about the activity of the Hizb-ut-Tahrir party," he insisted. "Its activity has become much more dangerous since the launch of military action by the United States and Great Britain."
Since the outbreak of the Iraq conflict the activity of Islamic radicals in southern Kyrgyzstan has indeed intensified. A slogan written anonymously on the building of the Bazar-Kurgan administration proclaimed: "American imperialists - hands off Iraq!", while unidentified people wrote on Bazar-Kurgan's central mosque: "Muslim, without a caliphate, you have no future!"
http://www.forum18.org/
Back to the Table of Contents |
