Many of the activists were wearing black armbands and ribbons
Posted in General on 22. Sep, 2010
Many of the activists were wearing black armbands and ribbons.The rebellion in the Ferghana valley has given the country’s fragmented and disorganised opposition movement a fresh momentum to unite and openly express opinions, Mr Yuldashev added Opposition parties are banned from running in elections. The security forces have waged a ruthless campaign to crush both the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which seeks a Muslim state in Ferghana, and Hizb ut-Tahrir, another Islamist group whose members have been blamed for a bomb attack and labelled “terrorists” by the Karimov regime.Sympathy for the protesters has spread as far as the capital, where a small gathering of people risked the wrath of the authorities to lay flowers in commemoration of the bloodiest days of fighting in the country’s post-Soviet era.”It was a black day in Uzbek history. But human rights groups and independent observers, including the former British ambassador Craig Murray, say Mr Karimov was leading a brutal police state, propped up by the arbitrary detention and torture of Muslim dissidents protesting at the desperate economic conditions.Separatist movements in the Ferghana valley, which runs across the eastern border into Kyrgyzstan, sprang up in the early Nineties in response to Tashkent’s persecution of minorities in the area. The blackened and charred upper storeys of what had been the nerve centre of Mr Karimov’s authority, pock-marked with bullet holes, bore witness to the fighting.
Mr Karimov has sought to blame the violence on radical Islamists with alleged links to al-Qa’ida attempting to overthrow the secular government in Tashkent. The State Department has barely mentioned the loss of civilian life and instead said Washington was particularly concerned about the escape of prisoners, “including possibly members of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, an organisation we consider a terrorist organisation”. In contrast to the US stance, the EU put the blame squarely on the government for the bloodshed, saying the protest was the result of a lack of respect for human rights or the rule of law and of a failure to alleviate poverty The EU spoke of protesters but not rebels. Russia said it denounced “the provocation by extremists in Uzbekistan”.. During their trial, the men were accused of belonging to an extreme sect called “Akromiya”, which Mr Zainabitdinov said was an invention of the security services. He denied there had been any “rebels” in Andijan, and said the men were set free by relatives and friends.
This became a catalyst for an uprising fuelled by years of economic malaise and official corruption. “Maybe my comparison will seem a little too elevated but like the Bastille prison in France, the local jail in Andijan was a symbol of tyranny and injustice for all of us, so it was doomed to fall one day,” he told Reuters.How has the international community reacted to the violence?The US has feted Tashkent as an ally in the “war on terror” and maintains a military base close to the border with Afghanistan. I don’t have to agree with them, but we have an obligation to listen to how they see what happened here. And we have to learn the facts.”We can have different interpretations but we have to deal with it. We can’t say there’s only one way to teach history.” Like Mr Majali she adds: “For our sake. Not only to be nice to the Arabs, but for our sake and for the sake of the two peoples who live here.”.
The violence was prompted by the trial of 23 local businessmen charged with inciting Islamic unrest. What started the uprising in Andijan?
The violence was prompted by the trial of 23 local businessmen charged with inciting Islamic unrest.Witnesses say a group of men attacked a police station and military unit, stole weapons, and then overran the prison where they freed the businessmen and others. The rebels then occupied the regional government headquarters in the city centre Several thousand protesters and onlookers gathered. Troops were sent in and gunned down hundreds of people outside a school, including 10 police being held hostage by the rebels.Who do the Uzbek authorities blame for the deaths?President Islam Karimov claims the rebels are “armed criminals” linked to the outlawed Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir They deny involvement, stating their opposition to violence. Mr Karimov, criticised in the West for jailing thousands of dissident Muslims, frequently says Uzbekistan faces a threat from militant Islam and points to bombings and shootings that killed 50 last year.Who do local rights groups blame for the uprising?Saidzhakhon Zainabitdinov, the local head of human rights group Appeal, said the 23 businessmen on trial were “humble people and pious Muslims” with no extremist tendencies.
independence, everything” the Israelis refused for a long time to accept any inclusion of the Nakba.At a discussion to mark publication of the book in Jerusalem this week, Mr Qaymari said many Palestinians wondered why Jews did not also draw a lesson about minorities as well as the need for a strong Israel; “how can the people of the Holocaust do bad things to us?” He added: “We have our own catastrophe which is still going on. If we understand your catastrophe and hardship, you have to understand ours.” But Mr Qaymari concludes his paper with a clarion call for Palestinians “to recognise the Holocaust and its victims, not just numbers but names. When names substitute for numbers and the conflict is thus humanised, the solution will be round the corner.”At their meeting in Nazareth, Mr Majali and Ms Lapid each stressed the importance of mutual understanding for its own, humanising sake, as well as a step, however initially modest, towards resolving conflict. They used to gather to read an unpublished book by a jailed Muslim theologian, Akram Yuldashev, and they had set up a charitable organisation to help the poor in Andijan He said they were not extremists.