Prosecution of alleged radicals could strengthen their organisations

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DUSHANBE – The Tajik government is cracking down on banned religious movements, but critics warn the strategy might backfire.

Among the banned groups are Salafists, who say the police are hounding them.

“When an agent from the (Committee for State Security) came to our home to look for my brother, my parents were amazed”, said the sister of a Salafist, who asked to remain anonymous. “Our family is very well known ... Mother told him that she gave her children the right to choose their own path in life“.

“We do not call for the overthrow of the government. We do not kill anyone; we live for ourselves”, one fugitive Salafiya activist said in an e-mail to Central Asia Online. He fled abroad with his family to escape arrest. The activist, 38, joined the movement during his student days in Egypt.

The police have certainly kept busy. Last summer, authorities arrested about 40 Salafi members in a Dushanbe mosque. They eventually released most of them, but have kept Salafi leader Mullo Sirojiddin and a few others in custody. The detainees could face charges of inciting religious hatred.

Authorities also initiated court proceedings against 92 members of Jamaat ut-Tabligh, whom they accuse of propagandising in mosques.

In 2009, the country's courts sentenced 37 members of banned extremist organisations, said Supreme Court Deputy Chief Justice Zafar Azizov on January 15.

The government has banned 14 organisations – al-Qaeda, the Islamic Movement of East Turkestan, the Islamic Party of Turkestan, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Jaamat ut-Tabligh, Tochikiston-i Ozod, Lashkari Taiba, Hizb ut-Tahrir, Salafiya, the Muslim Brotherhood, Jamiati Islomii Pokiston, the Islamic Group, Sozmoni Tabligot and the Taliban, according to Makhmajon Khayrulloyev, chief of the Department for Control of Security in the General Prosecutor's Office.

The reasons for banning the groups vary, he said. Jaamat ut-Tabligh was calling for an Islamic republic, while Hizb ut-Tahrir is another group that seeks to implement a pure Islamic doctrine and create a Central Asian caliphate. As for Salafiya, he said it was fomenting religious strife.

“Salafiya is not an organisation; it’s just a movement”, he said. “But its members started saying their movement was pure Islam, while others were not”.

As police crackdown on the Salafiya movement, it is unclear how many members they have to confront. A Tajik special services officer, who insisted on anonymity, said the movement claimed more than 10,000 adherents but had “no more than 2,000” according to his agency’s count.

Some critics are warning that aggressive pursuit of members of banned groups could backfire. Among those naysayers is Mukhiddin Kabiri, leader of the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan, the only officially recognised religious party in Central Asia.

“Salafiya has found support among the gilded youth because it offers a very simple form of Islam”, he said. “The official religious leadership has rather heavily compromised itself, lacking religious legitimacy and proper knowledge of Islam”.

Religious movements also benefit from lavish foreign funding, Kabiri added. He called Salafiya “radical” but urged the government to draw a distinction between radicalism and extremism.

“If we fight with extremists or terrorists, it’s understandable”, Kabiri said. “But is it worth fighting radicals with these same methods? ... By driving them into a corner and sending them to prison, we are turning these normal, peaceful people into extremists”.

Kabiri had a two-pronged prescription for preventing extremism's growth in Tajikistan. First, according to him, economic, educational and healthcare development can turn back religious extremism. “These (religious) organisations offer easy alternatives” to frustrated youth who can’t find work or get an education, he stated.

Second, the government needs to co-operate with rather than do battle with moderate Islam, he said.

“It’s possible to co-operate with religion, to be a partner”, he said. “Moderate Islam ... is capable not only of fighting but of destroying these extremist and terrorist groups”.

“Authorities ... around the world fear moderate Islam because it could ... become a rival for power”, he concluded. “(It) doesn’t fit into the plans of authoritarian dictatorships”.