USBEKISTAN:
update:Human
Rights Watch report 7th June:
BBC.The group's assessment was based on
interviews with more than 50 witnesses, most of which had
fled to Kyrgyzstan. As has been reported previously, HRW
said the huge protest was sparked by the trial of 23
local businessmen on charges of religious extremism and
the subsequent freeing of those men and other prisoners
by armed locals on the night of 12 May. But it said there
was no evidence that the protest was motivated by an
Islamist agenda, as alleged by the government.
"Interviews with numerous people present at the
demonstrations consistently revealed that the protesters
spoke about economic conditions in Andijan, government
repression, and unfair trials - and not the creation of
an Islamic state. People were shouting 'Ozodliq!'
['Freedom'] and not 'Allahu Akbar' ['God is
Great']," HRW said. Witnesses told the group that
they massed in Andijan's main square, calling for freedom
and justice, and were then gunned down by government
troops after the square was sealed off.
Escape route 'blocked' The protesters tried to
flee the square, and fled north, but found their way
blocked and came under heavy fire near School 15, the
report said.
The government says it is conducting its own
investigation into what happened. A few days after the
bloodshed, it arranged for foreign diplomats to visit
Andijan, but the visitors said their tour was tightly
constrained. HRW said that, on the basis of its
interviews with witnesses, it believed hundreds of people
died during the 13 May crackdown. The Uzbek embassy in
London did not respond to a request for an interview
regarding the HRW report.
1. Crowd masses
on Bobur Square, which is later sealed off by
security forces 2. Troops open fire on
crowd as helicopters circle, forcing people to
flee north to Cholpon Prospect 3. Crowd
pushes aside buses set up to block the road, as
shooting continues 4. Crowd comes face to
face with troops near School 15, who open fire as
othe soldiers in buildings along the road shoot
at the crowd too
Source: Human Rights Watch |
Prepared for June 1st Handstand issue:
The following report on secret trials of Islamic
businessmen would appear to be an American initiated
Legal harrassment in line with the trial of professor Al
Arian (see the previous item on the nav.column)and others
in Florida for the same charges, ie. that their
charitable work for social purposes has been declared by
both authorities as Support for AlQuaeda That these two
legal events have now been followed, in the case of
Uzbekistan, with a "riot" that has seen the
death of maybe hundreds of citizens in Andijan, conjures
up the idea that the events are connected by a single
strand of political activity, the pseudo war against
terror that is now to be introduced into every part of
the world by USA's imperialist authorities.
"UZBEKISTAN:
Islamic charitable work "criminal" and
"extremist"?"
by Igor Rotar ("Forum
18 News Service," February 14, 2005)
http://www.wwrn.org/parse.php?idd=9702&c=33
Twenty three businessmen prominent in
Islamic-inspired charitable work - whom the authorities
claim were members of a "criminal" and
"extremist" organisation with the name Akramia
- are due to go on trial at Alatankul district court on
the outskirts of Andijan [Andijon], a town in the Uzbek
section of the Fergana [Farghona] valley, local human
rights activist Lutfullo Shamsuddinov told Forum 18 News
Service on 5 February. He believes the authorities have
deliberately chosen a court that is not in Andijan itself
but in a smaller town, so that the court hearings are
harder for human rights activists and foreign observers
to reach. No date has yet been set for the trial to
begin.
The 23 men due to face trial are Rasuljon Ajikhalilov,
Abdumajit Ibragimov,
Abdulboki Ibragimov, Tursunbek Nazarov, Makhammadshokir
Artikov, Odil
Makhsdaliyev, Dadakhon Nodirov, Shamsitdin Atamatov,
Ortikboy Akbarov, Rasul Akbarov, Shavkat Shokirov,
Abdurauf Khamidov, Muzaffar Kodirov,
Mukhammadaziz Mamdiyev, Nasibillo Maksudov, Adkhamjon
Babojonov, Khakimjon Zakirov, Gulomjon Nadirov, Musojon
Mirzaboyev, Dilshchodbek Mamadiyev, Abdulvosid Igamov,
Shokurjon Shakirov, and Ravshanbek Mazimjonov. They are
accused under Articles 242 (organising a criminal
organisation), 159 (undermining the constitutional basis
of the republic of Uzbekistan), 244-1 (preparing or
distributing documents that contain a threat to public
safety) and 244-2 (setting up, leading, and participating
in extremist religious organisations) of the Criminal
Code.
The head of the Uzbek government's committee for
religious affairs, Shoazim Minovarov, refused absolutely
to discuss the impending trial. "I don't want to
discuss the issue of Akramia," he told Forum 18 from
the capital Tashkent on
8th February. "I refuse to make any comment on this
subject." When Forum 18 commented that, unlike the
banned radical Islamist movement Hizb-ut-Tahrir, the
Andijan businessmen emphatically avoided politics and
that therefore their prosecution appears illogical,
Minovarov refused all further comment.
Bakhrom Shakirov, father of one of the detainees
Shokurjon Shakirov, said all the so-called members of the
Akramia organisation were arrested on 23 June 2004. He
insisted to Forum 18 that in fact the detainees were not
members of any underground organisation. "All of the
detainees were devout believers and entrepreneurs,"
he told Forum 18 on 5 February. "They set up a
mutual benefit fund and tried to help one another in
commercial matters, following Islamic teachings."
Bakhrom Shakirov said the arrested businessmen used
the money in the mutual benefit fund that they had
established to carry out charitable work and regularly
transferred money to children's homes and schools.
"A broad-based social welfare scheme was set up at
the companies run by the detained businessmen," he
told Forum 18. "Staff at the companies received
material help when they married (staff were often even
provided with an apartment) and when they were ill (the
employer paid in full for all the medicines and sick
leave). Any employee at the company knew quite well that
if anything went wrong the company management and his
colleagues would always come to his aid."
Shakirov maintains that the "Islamic
businessmen" worked out a genuine minimum
subsistence wage in Andijan (which was several times
higher than the official minimum wage) and agreed to pay
staff a wage that was higher than this figure. "It's
true that Muslim prayers were read out at these Islamic
companies, but this was a voluntary matter," he
reported. "They didn't demand that workers should be
believers, but people at these companies gradually came
to understand the truth of Islam."
According to Shakirov, these Islamic companies
gradually became famous throughout Andijan, and the local
media regularly carried positive reports about the
charitable activities of the businessmen who are now
under arrest. "Even now, while the businessmen are
in prison, local television is showing glowing reports
about their charitable work."
Shakirov believes that it is the popularity of these
Islamic companies among the population that has provoked
the authorities' harsh response. "The state has
begun to see these businessmen as ideological
competitors, because their activity has truly
demonstrated the superiority of Islamic economics,"
he told Forum 18.
He did not deny that the businessmen currently under
arrest are supporters of the imprisoned Islamic dissident
Akram Yuldashev. "In the early 1990s I and my sons
made friends with Akram Yuldashev. The word 'Akramia' was
applied to us by the authorities, but we call our circle
of people with a similar outlook 'Birodar'," he told
Forum 18, citing the Uzbek and Farsi word for
"brotherhood".
Shakirov said Yuldashev emphatically distanced himself
from politics and never called for the formation of an
Islamic state. "Yuldashev's main idea was that every
Muslim should aspire to personal perfection and that then
the world would gradually change for the better,"
Shakirov explained. "In the early 1990s I was a
manager of an Islamic furniture company, and Akram
Yuldashev was one of the staff at the factory. In 1997
grenades were planted on me and I was put in prison for
three and a half years. Now it seems that it is my son's
turn."
In 1992, Akram Yuldashev, a 29-year-old maths teacher
from Andijan, wrote a theological pamphlet "Yimonga
Yul" (Path to faith). In the pamphlet he did not
touch on political issues, but considered general moral
themes, arguing for the superiority of Islamic
philosophy. A circle of sympathisers formed around him,
who tried to follow Islamic guidelines in their own
lives.
In 1998 the authorities planted drugs on Yuldashev and
arrested him. In April that year Andijan city court
sentenced him to two and a half years' imprisonment on
charges of possessing drugs. At the end of December the
same year he was released under an amnesty. However, he
was re-arrested the day after the bomb attacks in
February 1999 in Tashkent and was sentenced by the same
court to 17 years in prison. No proof was offered in
court that he had organised the Tashkent attacks. He was
also found guilty of forming an extremist religious
organisation, Akramia, whose aim was supposedly to form
an Islamic state in Uzbekistan. According to the court's
findings, Yuldashev's pamphlet "Yimonga Yul"
apparently called for Uzbekistan's state structure to be
overthrown, for power to be seized and for the legally
elected and appointed state representatives to be
removed.
Local people Forum 18 has spoken to reject Uzbek
government and foreign press allegations that Akramia was
set up by former Hizb-ut-Tahrir members, dissatisfied by
the organisation's professed rejection of violence, as a
means to achieve the aim of an Islamic caliphate.
Yuldashev's brochure contains no call to seize power
violently and a Russian translation by the Andijan-based
human rights activist Saidjakhon Zaynabiddinov was posted
on the centrasia.ru website on 25 August 2004.
"Anyone who reads Akram Yuldashev's brochure
carefully will understand that the accusation that this
philosophical tract calls for the violent overthrow of
the authorities is simply absurd," Zaynabiddinov
told Forum 18 in Andijan last November, dismissing the
dozens of references in the court verdict against
Yuldashev which cited the pamphlet as the main proof
against the author.
"They're not content that my innocent husband is
locked up in prison, but are trying to make out of him
some kind of Bin Laden," Zaynabiddinov quoted
Yuldashev's wife Yedgora as complaining
- The massacre
in Andijan
Refugees who fled from the massacre
committed by Uzbek security forces agreed
on one thing yesterday: the number of
dead is not 500 - the most common
reported figure - but could be many more.
-
- As reports continued to
come in of clashes spreading outside the
town of Andizhan, a sergeant in charge of
the bridge at the border village of Kara
Suu said he believed that 2,000 had been
massacred during three days.
-
- There is no way to confirm
numbers offered by refugees, but it
seemed likely that when the truth
emerges, the massacre in Uzbekistan, an
American ally in the fight against
terrorism, could become the deadliest
assault on civilians since the Tiananmen
Square massacre in 1989.
-
- The Uzbek-Kyrgyz border at
Kara-Suu was open periodically yesterday
under the watchful eye of Kyrgyz soldiers
armed with machineguns.
-
- Kara-Suu, which is divided
between the two former Soviet republics,
was tense as traders hurried goods
between the two sides of town, divided by
a fast flowing river straddled by a
makeshift metal bridge.
-
- A few refugees from
Andizhan remained in the town staying
close to their Kyrgyz relatives and
homes. Apart from the 500 believed dead
in Andizhan on Friday, there were reports
of further deaths in nearby areas.
-
- Saidjahon Zaynabitdinov,
the head of the local Appeal human rights
group, said yesterday that government
troops had killed about 200 demonstrators
on Saturday in Pakhtabad, about 18 miles
northeast of Andizhan.
-
- Suvahuan, a mother of four
in her 40s who fled the town on Saturday
with her children, gave a harrowing
account of the scene in Andizhan.
-
- "They had snipers
everywhere and they didn't care who they
shot down. I saw hundreds of people dead
in the street. I saw them shoot boys,
women and children," she said
"They shot at the crowd like
animals. They were firing at us from
helicopters. People got confused running
everywhere, trying to hide in buildings
or behind cars.''
-
- Rakhmat, a trader who
crossed the hastily rebuilt Kara-Suu
river bridge, said he saw desperate
refugees drown in the river swollen by
spring rains. "President Islam
Karimov took that bridge down in 1999
because he didn't want us trading in
Kyrgyzstan, that's half the reason why
there were protests in Andizhan, it was
poverty not politics that drove people on
to the streets.
-
- "It was chaotic. I
saw several people drown as they tried to
cross the bridge. Anyone who says the
protest was the work of militant
Islamists is lying. It was the people,
tired, poor, hungry people, not
extremists, who took to the street.
Anything else is Karimov's
propaganda," he added.
-
- The Kyrgyz department of
defence last night hurried lorry loads of
troops to the border area 15 miles west
of Osh in the south of the country.
-
- More than 2,000 Uzbek
convicts, many of whom were imprisoned on
charges of Islamic extremism, are still
unaccounted for and are believed to be
hiding in the Andizhan area 25 miles from
the Kyrgyz border. The arsenal at
Andizhan prison was looted of rifles and
grenades, according to witnesses.
-
- Kyrgyzstan has officially
camped 560 Uzbek refugees in Jalal-Abad
province, but many more are being housed
by extended families and friends.
-
- Gunfire was again reported
in Andizhan last night prompting fears
that Uzbek forces were flushing armed
militants from their boltholes around the
town for a final assault.
-
- * Alec Russell, in
Washington, writes: The Bush
administration yesterday toughened its
stance towards President Karimov, calling
on him to ease his repressive control
over the country. In the strongest
language to date, the State Department
said yesterday it was "deeply
disturbed" by reports that soldiers
in Uzbekistan fired on unarmed civilians.
-
- © Copyright of Telegraph
Group Limited 2005.
-
- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml
|
update:by Justin
Raimondo |
A week after
Uzbekistan's dictator Islam Karimov crushed a protest in the eastern
town of Andijan ordering riot police to
fire directly into a crowd, killing as many as
1,000 the death toll is rising and the
reaction is growing. Inside the country,
demonstrations continue just down the road in the
town of Kara Suu, where locals rose up, took over
government buildings, kicked the mayor out of
town, and took matters into their own hands.The
standoff between riot police and hundreds of
protesters is ongoing, as the rest of the world
wonders what fresh horrors are about to be
unleashed by the increasingly desperate dictator.
The Kara Suu rebellion was characterized as an
"Islamist" uprising by Karimov and much
of the international media, but the BBC managed
to interview the leader, one Bakhtior Rakhimov
before he was arrested and whisked away to the
regime's torture chambers, and he sounds more
like Donald Trump than Osama bin Laden
"There was
certainly an operatic intensity about the man
that marked him out from everyone else in the
teeming Uzbek bazaar. His fine cotton tunic was
dazzlingly white. His beard fastidiously trimmed,
the ceremonial dagger in his belt elegantly
curved, and he strode through the market like a
fairy-tale king. The bazaar ran down to a rusty
iron footbridge. The bridge spanned a racing
blue-green torrent. On the other bank lay
Uzbekistan's neighbour, Kyrgyzstan. And across
the frontier flowed an endless stream of goods,
TV sets and fridges, consignments of shoes and
bales of spring onions.
"Bakhtior
Rakhimov strode down to the bridge, surveyed the
free trade and saw that it was good.
"And well he
might be pleased for Mr. Rakhimov, a prosperous
farmer and businessman, had supplied the crane
that made it possible just four days earlier to
repair the bridge deliberately broken by the
Uzbek government to restrict cross-border
business.
"For four days
the bridge had been open again.
"For four days,
Korasuv the little town on the Uzbek bank
had been free."
The source of popular
anger directed at the Uzbek government was summed
up by what one protester told the London Telegraph:
"We have a
saying at home: if you want to see heaven, watch
Uzbek television, if you want to see hell, go to
Uzbekistan."
What drove the residents
of Kara Suu to attack government buildings,
administer rough justice to local officials, and
rebuild a bridge leading to a thriving bazaar on
the Kyrgyzstan side of the border wasn't Islam,
but resistance to the regime's crazy attempt to
choke off trade. The dismantling of the bridge by
state decree epitomizes the government's
destructive economic policies: onerous
regulations forbidding the sale of imports, and a
host of draconian regulations that all but forbid
commerce. Rakhimov's crime, like that of the 23
business-men whose arrest set off the Andijan
rebellion, appears to have been too much
commercial success: Rakhimov's sock factory
employs 200 people in a region where unemployment
is massive, and it was his crane that made it
possible to rebuild the bridge.
"He did everything
for the people; he's not against the
government," said Aziza Ulukhodjjayeva, one
of the protesters calling for his release.
"He gave people jobs and a way to make
money." Obviously a dangerous
"subversive" in the
neo-Communist world of America's
staunchest.Central Asian ally, that is.
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