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On Might 31, a 57-year-old lady from Navai area was sentenced to 3 years of restricted freedom for liking a social media publish in 2018, when she was in Turkey. The video she “favored” on the Odnoklassniki.ru social media platform was a spiritual speech in Uzbek delivered by an individual named Rafik Kamalov.
It may have been a video of the late imam Muhammadrafiq Kamalov, who was born in Kyrgyzstan. He was well-known for his lectures on politics and Islam earlier than he was reportedly killed in a 2006 particular joint operation between Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan in opposition to alleged members of the Islamic Motion of Uzbekistan. Kamalov was, and stays, a controversial determine.
The video lecture basically claimed that individuals who don’t provide namaz, a ritual prayer to be noticed 5 occasions a day by Muslims, “haven’t any proof of being a Muslim, haven’t no proper to contemplate themselves a Muslim.” The court docket verdict mentioned that the video is filled with “concepts of spiritual fanaticism, and it’s prohibited to import, put together and distribute it (the video) within the territory of Uzbekistan.” Though the girl was exterior Uzbekistan, the decision maintains that when she favored the video she distributed it to her 130 digital mates on the platform.
Over the previous 12 months or so there was an increase in these sorts of instances in Uzbekistan. Younger individuals specifically are dealing with jail phrases for sharing non secular content material with their mates on social media platforms. In January 2023, 21-year-old Sardor Rahmankulov was sentenced to 5 years for sending a nasheed – an Islamic tune – to a good friend by way of Telegram again in 2020. He was held in jail for six months throughout the trial and was allegedly “ferociously” tortured. In Might, 21-year-old pupil Jahongir Ulughmurodov was given three years imprisonment for sharing a YouTube hyperlink to a nasheed in a Telegram group chat together with his classmates. The Committee of Spiritual Affairs discovered the tune to be “infused with concepts of fanaticism.”
These and different reported instances created a wave of criticism each amongst netizens of Uzbekistan and activists. “[Y]oung individuals aged 19-20 are being imprisoned for a long run. Final 12 months, a 19-year-old boy was sentenced to 12 years and three months. … we’re at first of the pattern throughout the Karimov period,” human rights activist Abdurahmon Tashanov advised Kun.uz, a neighborhood information outlet.
The 2023 annual report from the U.S. Fee on Worldwide Spiritual Freedom named Uzbekistan among the many nations it recommends the U.S. State Division embrace on a “Particular Watch Record” for violations of spiritual freedom. The report famous that Tashkent “continued to severely limit freedom of faith or perception by its 1998 legislation On Freedom of Conscience and Spiritual Organizations, as amended in 2021, which requires non secular teams to acquire registration to have interaction in non secular exercise and prohibits unregistered non secular exercise, the non-public instructing of faith, missionary exercise, and proselytism, along with different undue restrictions.”
In lots of instances, these arrested are younger people, and sometimes not even non secular. Most don’t converse Arabic and subsequently don’t perceive the content material of the nasheeds they share. It took an entire non secular committee to determine the aforementioned nasheeds as extremist. How would a 20-year-old know?
The Ministry of Justice of Uzbekistan has a broadcast listing of “organizations and assets acknowledged as terrorist.” The actions of those teams and dissemination of supplies listed on the web site are prohibited by a 2019 choice of the Supreme Courtroom. However the listing solely contains 166 names and supplies.
How arrests on spreading extremist supplies are being dealt with is one other aspect of the issue. The preliminary authorized foundation for arresting sure younger individuals isn’t all the time clear; it’s solely after they’ve been detained that their telephones and social media accounts are scrutinized for non secular content material, typically years-old. Ulughmuradov’s mom mentioned legislation enforcement representatives mentioned that they had been taking her son as a consequence of a theft that had occurred close by. She insists neither she herself nor Ulughmurodov knew what a nasheed was. “My son mentioned ‘I listened to it as a tune,’” the mom mentioned in a video enchantment to the president and the Supreme Courtroom, begging for a second probability for her son.
In one other comparable case, final 12 months in April, 20-year-old Abdurahim Abdughaniyev’s telephone was checked by representatives of the Division of Combating Terrorism and Extremism of the Ministry of Inner Affairs. They discovered prohibited non secular materials in Abdughaniyev’s telephone. The court docket verdict declared that Abdughaniyev “downloaded it from the Web with out understanding that it was a prohibited materials, after which despatched it to 2 mates” by way of Telegram. But, amongst different expenses, the 20-year-old was charged beneath Article 159 of the Legal Code. The article is reserved for instances of “brazenly calling for unconstitutional change of the present state system… usurpation of energy or removing of legally elected or appointed representatives of the authorities, or violation of the territorial integrity of the Republic of Uzbekistan in violation of the Structure,” in addition to appearing to “put together, retailer or distribute supplies of such content material for the aim of distribution.”
Ruslan Saburov, a journalist at Kun.uz, notes that the identical article was utilized in a trial in opposition to “the organizers of demonstrations and riots” of the 2022 Karakalpakstan unrest. Abdughaniyev was sentenced to 6 years in jail though there was no proof of him attacking the constitutional regime. Later, the regional court docket modified his sentence to three.5 years following an enchantment.
As of publication, eight extra individuals have been detained with expenses of “failure to report terrorist acts” and “financing terror” in Tashkent. Their family members declare the accused had a Telegram group the place they collected cash for donation functions. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Uzbek Service, Ozodlik, studies that there are bloggers among the many arrested who cowl non secular matters on Uzbek social media platforms. The case is being held in a closed court docket as there is perhaps different “accomplices who aren’t but identified to the investigation.” This will likely chill reporting on the case, with bloggers and journalists involved that they may very well be named subsequent.
In Mirziyoyev’s New Uzbekistan, non secular freedom stays as oppressed because it was within the outdated Karimov period. Though Mirziyoyev launched non secular and political prisoners in his preliminary years in energy, these emptied cells are once more being stuffed with new inmates. Males with lengthy beards are often detained on streets and compelled to shave, whereas girls are harassed for carrying hijabs. Spiritual publications are managed. To match, many teams or supplies which are restricted in Uzbekistan aren’t unlawful in neighboring Kyrgyzstan, but Kyrgyzstan has not become a caliphate.
The authorities in Tashkent see a political enemy in any model of Islamic apply that isn’t authorized (that’s, managed) by the state. The state of affairs, nevertheless, may get even worse. On July 9, Uzbekistan will maintain a snap presidential election, and Mirziyoyev will win. After the election his regime can have nothing to lose, and the crackdown on the regime’s critics — journalists, activists, in addition to non secular group — will harshen additional.
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