Foreign Correspondence

[Amaunet]

Hizb-ut-Tahrir more active in Kyrgyzstan - police


This could be an indication that the London and therefore U.S. backed Hizb-ut-Tahrir was behind neighboring Uzbekistan’s revolt.

-Am

Hizb-ut-Tahrir more active in Kyrgyzstan - police


May 23 2005 1:59PM

BISHKEK. May 23 (Interfax) - The outlawed Hizb-ut-Tahrir party has become more active in Kyrgyzstan, a source in the Kyrgyz Interior Ministry press service told Interfax.

Four people were apprehended in Bishkek and northern and southern Kyrgyzstan last weekend for distributing Hizb-ut-Tahrir leaflets, he said.

"Over 100 leaflets were confiscated. Criminal proceedings were opened [on the charge of religious discord]," he said.

Meanwhile, acting first deputy prime minister Felix Kulov told the public on Sunday, "the previous administration of Kyrgyzstan did not have a clear plan of action for an efficient response to religious extremism."


http://www.interfax.ru/e/B/politics/28.html?id_issue=11294954




Reference:
The HT is of concern in any analysis of the present Kyrgyz crisis, for several reasons. The anti-government propaganda of the HT might have had some contribution to the public uprising against the Akayev government. We must bear in mind that conditions in other Central Asian states are worse and public resentment is high against these governments. In fact, Akayev, the first president to face the wrath of the people, was relatively more liberal and responsive. HT activities in Kyrgyzstan are concentrated in the southern part of the country, in and around the Kyrgyz-controlled part of the Ferghana Valley. HT members are especially active in the Osh region and about 20 loyalists were arrested there in 2002.

In an interview given to the Jamestown Foundation in March 2004, Sadykzhan Kamuluddin (Kamalov), president of the Islamic Center of the Republic of Kyrgyzstan and former mufti and member of the Kyrgyzstan Supreme Council, asserted that Kyrgyzstan alone had about 2,000-3,000 members of the HT, suggesting that the HT was numerically strongest in Kyrgyzstan. He claimed that the government was unwittingly assisting the HT in its propaganda by imprisoning and persecuting members of the party. In fact, the head of the Committee of National Security in Kyrgyzstan stated in early 2004 that the HT was a prominent force in the struggle for power.

Apart from carrying out political agitation in the Kyrgyz state, the HT has also been accused of terrorist activities, although it has a stated agenda of non-violence. In November 2003, Kyrgyz State Security announced the capture of three HT members planning to blow up the US airbase at Manas. A number of Kyrgyz nationals have been caught as members of the HT with explosives in Russia. Bishkek authorities have also reported from time to time about developing links between the extremist organizations like the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and the Islamic Movement of Turkestan (IMT) in Central Asia and the HT and between the East Turkistan Islamic Movement and other Uighur separatist groups and the HT.
http://www.investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?Message_id=6332510&txt2find=ht

Why wouldn't Straw comment on the "opposition" - the Hizbut Tahrir (HT) - in the Andijan incidents? Tashkent has alleged that HT activists in the city communicated with "mentors" in Afghanistan and Kyrgyzstan. Moreover, it is well-known that the HT's "headquarters" are in the United Kingdom. HT spokesmen appear routinely in the coffee shops of plush London hotels to give media interviews.
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