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III. TARGETS OF THE CAMPAIGN

This chapter describes and documents the harassment, detention, prosecution, and imprisonment of independent Muslims from 1998 through the present.

The campaign’s original targets were individual religious leaders, imams, some of whom were imprisoned or disappeared as early as 1992. Since that time, prosecutors have brought charges against people for being “Wahhabi,” for membership in “extremist” or illegal organizations, and on trumped-up weapons and narcotics charges. Those convicted have been subject to long prison sentences. Authorities used incommunicado detention, beatings, and torture during pre-trial detention to obtain testimony to support these charges, as is detailed in “Torture and Mistreatment in Pre-trial Detention” below. Those detainees whose charges were dropped or who were paroled or released under amnesty face ongoing harassment.

The government’s campaign later expanded to target large numbers of actual associates or disciples of the independent imams, and even some persons merely perceived to be affiliated with them. In cases brought against such people, participation in religious discussion, ownership of a copying machine and cell phones, even playing soccer, have been cited as evidence of criminal activity or intent. As in cases involving the imams themselves, the dangerously elastic charge of “Wahhabism” appears frequently in the case reports, as do lengthy prison sentences.

Beginning in 1998, the Uzbek government began to target members of Hizb ut-Tahrir. Unlike the imams, their followers, and others branded “Wahhabi,” they are identifiable members of an organized group that advocates a particular ideology: the establishment of a Caliphate. But like those accused of “Wahhabism,” the group’s members face charges of conspiring to overthrow the government, as well as criminal charges relating to membership in a banned organization. The government has shown little patience for distinguishing among religious principles, political beliefs, and actual subversion. Case materials show that merely distributing Hizb ut-Tahrir’s religious leaflets and engaging in discussion of Hizb ut-Tahrir religious ideas have been criminalized as acts hostile to the state, and prosecuted aggressively.

Chapter III reports these developments in two sections. “Imams, Their Followers, and ‘Wahhabis’” documents the government’s actions against the imams, their associates, and those alleged to be affiliated with them. Because of important differences in the target group itself and in the issues raised, the campaign against Hizb ut-Tahrir is treated separately in “Hizb ut-Tahrir.”

Imams, Their Followers, and “Wahhabis”

Uzbek authorities justify the campaign against independent Islam as necessary to fight terrorism. But years before the Uzbek government faced armed threats from the IMU, suffered bombings in the capital, or became a partner in the U.S.-led campaign against terrorism, it took action to limit the nonviolent challenge to its authority posed by an organized and independent religious movement. It did so not to stave off threats of terrorism, but to prevent the emergence of politicized Islam.

As explained above, a well-known and elemental part of the Soviet project was eradication of religion as an organizing principle for society and social interaction. In Central Asia, this policy was modified and expressed in terms of state efforts to control and co-opt religious belief and expression. The government of independent Uzbekistan inherited the Soviet program of state control of religion, as well as suspicion of segments of society whose first allegiance was not to the state, or more specifically not to the ruling state elites. Coming out of the glasnost era, having witnessed the birth of political opposition parties in the country and seen the challenge they posed to their political monopoly, Uzbekistan’s elites reinvigorated Soviet methods to reestablish control over politics and religion. Once the political opposition was effectively neutralized or marginalized in 1992, the elites assessed any further threats to their hold on power. It was in this moment that state focus turned to religious Muslim leaders who displayed any form of independence from state authority. This independence was manifested in a variety of ways: through a refusal to praise the president and his policies during religious services; expression of a desire for a state governed by Islamic law; refusal to work for state law enforcement to spy on fellow religious leaders or members of the congregation, to root out disloyalty to the state or its doctrine; or, simply, exhibition of popularity and influence with a congregation. The state viewed these dynamic, renegade, or dissident imams as a threat, as a potential organizing force for religious-based opposition to the existing power elites. With the program and tools of religious repression already at their disposal, the former-Soviet authorities made use of the state’s monopoly on power and initiated their campaign to rid the country of religious expression that was independent of state control.

One of the first steps the government took was to persecute individual dissident spiritual leaders. One of them was Imam Abdulla Utaev, who disappeared in 1992. Then, in 1995, the state-appointed Imam Abduvali Mirzoev and his assistant vanished, many believe, at the hands of state agents. In 1997, Nematjon Parpiev, an assistant to Mirzoev, was disappeared.¹⁶⁶ Other well-known religious leaders, including imams Barnoev, Iuldashev, and Abdurakhmonov, were imprisoned in the late 1990s and in 2000 on charges of anti-state activity. The campaign of religious persecution began with these individuals, then expanded to their followers, and more recently has focused on the organization Hizb ut-Tahrir.

The government’s campaign extended to members of the official clergy. Among the first clergymen targeted was Imam Obidkhon Nazarov, one of the most popular—and, at one time, officially most favored—of the state-appointed imams. He was fired in 1996 for speaking out about the disappearance of Imam Mirzoev, refusing to serve as an informant for the national security services, and allegedly for objecting to policies of the Muslim Board.¹⁶⁷ In 1998 after two years of harassment, he either was disappeared or fled the country fearing arrest.¹⁶⁸ Nazarov was placed on a police wanted list for having been a leader of a “criminal extremist organization.” Following his vanishing, even a loose association with Imam Nazarov became the basis for arrests, conspiracy charges, and long prison sentences. According to one witness of this early phase of the crackdown, silencing these state religious leaders weakened the moderate, alternative expression of Islam and may have contributed to the growth of Hizb ut-Tahrir, the only formalized expression of religious dissent that currently exists in Uzbekistan.¹⁶⁹

Imams

Police arrested Imam Akhad Barnoev on March 15, 1999. Barnoev had served as imam-khatib (prayer leader and chief orator) of the well-known Otallohon, or Gumbas, mosque in Namangan from 1991 to 1995. Specifically, the state charged that Imam Barnoev allowed “Wahhabis” to attend his mosque, which was registered with the Muslim Board. Barnoev denied the charge in court, retorting that some of his congregation were given this label only because they raised their hands during prayers and said “amen” out loud following the reading of the fotikh sura (the fotikh sura is the first sura, or chapter, of the Koran, repeated several times in daily prayers).

Barnoev testified in court that his only fault was having been imam of a mosque that was later labeled “Wahhabi.” The state alleged, however, that those associated with the imam’s mosque created an organization composed of “reactionary religious extremists.”¹⁷⁰ Also cited against the imam were police claims to have found “Wahhabi leaflets” and weapons in his home.¹⁷¹ The court, finding that during his spiritual leadership of the Otallohon mosque Barnoev had “significantly contributed to the spread of Wahhabism,” and “had been an instructor and leader of Wahhabis,” sentenced him to eighteen years in prison and confiscation of his property.¹⁷² Imam Barnoev was held in Tashkent prison for at least five months following his conviction.¹⁷³ As of December 2002, the imam was incarcerated in Zangiota prison in Tashkent province.¹⁷⁴

Kyrgyz citizen Imam Iuldash Tursunbaev, born in 1955, served as a state-appointed spiritual leader in Uzbekistan from 1989 to 1996. He also presided over the congregation of Otallohon mosque in Namangan, the mosque later led by Imam Barnoev and branded by the government as “Wahhabi.”¹⁷⁵ He then worked at a medresseh in Tashkent and later as imam of a mosque in the Kattakurgan district of Samarkand, before returning to his native Kyrgyzstan, where he took over the leadership of a mosque in Bazar Kurgan, in Jalal-Abad province.¹⁷⁶ On August 29, 1999,¹⁷⁷ Uzbek law enforcement agents roughly seized him in Bazar Kurgan on the street outside a mosque and before some sixty to seventy witnesses.¹⁷⁸ They then transported him across the border to Uzbekistan, where they held him incommunicado, first in Namangan and later in Tashkent, until his January 2000 trial.¹⁷⁹

The indictment charged him with attempting or conspiring to commit terrorism, inciting ethnic, racial, or religious enmity, conspiracy to overthrow the government, attempt or conspiracy to commit subversive activity, organization of, or participation in, a criminal association, and illegal possession of weapons. It also charged Tursunbaev with being a “Wahhabi,” associated with disappeared Imam Mirzoev and aligned with militants who later became the leadership of the IMU. It did not accuse him of involvement in any specific violent act or specific plot to overthrow the government.¹⁸⁰ As evidence of the imam’s criminality the prosecution charged that he was an active participant in a goup called Tavba (Repentance), a charge he did not deny. Tavba—established in Azerbaijan in 1991 with the aim of uniting Muslim factions and eliminating dissension among religious leaders—reportedly included future IMU leaders Tokhir Iuldash and Juma Namangani among its members. According to knowledgeable rights defenders in Uzbekistan, the organization’s aims did not resonate with many Central Asian Muslims and garnered negligible support in Uzbekistan.¹⁸¹ Nor was the group forbidden at the time of Tursunbaev’s association with it.¹⁸² While the Uzbek government labeled Tavba a “religious extremist group,” Tursunbaev in his testimony recalled that his interest in it was sparked in 1991 by its goal to bring harmony to the Muslim community, its apolitical nature, and its status as an officially registered organization in Azerbaijan.¹⁸³

Testimony by prosecution witnesses did not strengthen the state’s case: Imam Barnoev, for example, stated that he did not know Tursunbaev and that his pre-trial written testimony incriminating the other imam had been dictated by police investigators.¹⁸⁴ The charge of weapons possession was based on a single unsubstantiated allegation, taking up just one sentence of the ten-page verdict against him. This stated that during the summer of 1991 (before Uzbekistan’s independence from the Soviet Union), the imam had received a shipment of an unspecified number of pistols with silencers from an unspecified person and had transported them to Namangan, with the aim of arming his “criminal group,” and showed them to people at a meeting.¹⁸⁵ This charge ostensibly rested on testimony provided to the court by men—some of whom were themselves in prison at the time of the trial—who claimed to have known the imam during the early 1990s. However, two witnesses testified that a man other than Imam Tursunbaev had brought guns to a meeting, while a third witness cited a completely different meeting where Tursunbaev supposedly showed off not pistols, but a single hunting rifle he had been given as a gift. The remaining witnesses for the prosecution did not address the weapons charge.¹⁸⁶

The Tashkent Province Court judge denied Human Rights Watch access to Tursunbaev’s trial on the day the defendant himself testified, January 13, and to a subsequent hearing on January 27, 2000. In a highly unorthodox move, the afternoon session of the January 27 hearing was, in fact, held behind closed doors in Tashkent prison. On February 29, 2000, repeating the prosecution’s indictment almost verbatim, the judge ruled Imam Tursunbaev guilty as charged and sentenced him to twenty years in prison.¹⁸⁷

Imam Tulkin Kori Ergashev, along with Imam Nazarov, was put on an official “wanted” list in 1998 for alleged anti-state activities.¹⁸⁸ As imam-khattib of the Sahobilar mosque in Tashkent, Ergashev had reportedly continued using a loudspeaker to broadcast the mosque’s call to prayer, in contravention of a 1998 government decree prohibiting this.¹⁸⁹ As a result, the Muslim Board dismissed him for disobedience.¹⁹⁰ It has also been reported that the Sahobilar mosque was unregistered—efforts to register the mosque with authorities reportedly failed—and that it drew a significant number of young people to Friday prayers.¹⁹¹ The unofficial status of the mosque and its popularity may also have been motivation for state antagonism toward Ergashev.¹⁹² Ergashev’s whereabouts are unknown, and he is believed to be in hiding since he left home in early 1998. In his absence, police arrested his son and brother and detained his wife.¹⁹³

Law enforcement agents arrested Imam Ergashev’s protégé soon after. Forty-one-year-old Imam Kobil Murodov had also been linked with Nazarov. After Ergashev’s dismissal, Murodov had taken over as imam of the Sahobilar mosque.¹⁹⁴ The U.S. Department of State reported that in early October 1998, Murodov was arrested on charges of illegal possession of narcotics and teaching religion without permission.¹⁹⁵ He died on October 30 in pre-trial detention at Tashkent prison.¹⁹⁶ According to the U.S. government report, “Murodov’s body showed severe bruising, his teeth were knocked out, and his collarbone and several ribs were broken.”¹⁹⁷ The official explanation for his death was either that he fell in his cell or was beaten by fellow inmates.¹⁹⁸

Nazarov’s former deputy, Abduvahid Iuldashev, served as imam of the officially registered Ilonli Ota, or Borijar, mosque in Tashkent for one year.¹⁹⁹ Iuldashev, born in 1968, is reputed to have been a popular and dynamic prayer leader. When Nazarov was removed from his post as imam of Tokhtaboi mosque in 1996 Iuldashev was detained and held for fifteen days on misdemeanor charges of “hooliganism.”²⁰⁰ In February 1999 the police arrested him after services at the Ilonli Ota mosque, and allegedly beat him and planted drugs on him.²⁰¹ He was convicted on drug possession charges. An appeals court released him on parole in August 1999, but his release was conditional and authorities kept him under tight surveillance. Notably, the appeals court determined that Iuldashev was not a member of any illegal religious organization, even though he was not charged with this infraction.²⁰² He was compelled to report every Saturday to the Sobir Rakhimov district police station to be filmed or photographed, to give fingerprints, and to sign a statement avowing that, “I, Abduvahid Iuldashev, am not a member of any religious sect and do not approve of these sects.”²⁰³ The content of these avowals is particularly revealing—police had ostensibly arrested Iuldashev for a narcotics violation, not on religion-related charges.

Police rearrested Iuldashev in July 2000 and held him incommunicado for more than five months at the Tashkent municipal police headquarters (MVD). They denied his lawyer access to him with the implausible explanation that he had elected to reject legal counsel.²⁰⁴ At trial, where he was charged along with twelve other men who had attended his mosque or were otherwise associated with him, Iuldashev testified that police had tortured him and other defendants to produce statements that he was the leader of an extremist religious group and had purchased weapons to prepare for the violent overthrow of the state.²⁰⁵ In April 2001 Judge Najimov of the Tashkent City Court found Iuldashev guilty of conspiracy to overthrow the state, leadership of a criminal group, leadership of a religious extremist, separatist, fundamentalist or other banned organization, possession and distribution of literature containing ideas of religious extremism, separatism, and fundamentalism, and illegal acquisition of foreign currency and sentenced him to nineteen years in prison.

The state’s case against Iuldashev was largely based on the allegation that lessons he gave on the Koran and other Islamic texts while serving as a state-appointed imam were actually lessons in “Wahhabism” and calls for holy war. Judge Najimov questioned co-defendant Ulugbek Vakhidov on this point. Vakhidov, who testified that he had asked Iuldashev to teach him more about Islam and was invited in 1998 to join a small class of three to four people, had the following exchange with the judge:

Judge: Abduvahid Iuldashev was your teacher. What did he teach you?

Vakhidov: To read the Koran and hadith and doa [supplication or prayer].

Judge: And the Arabic alphabet?

Vakhidov: I already knew that.

Judge: Did he ever say anything about jihad or infringing on the constitutional order?

Vakhidov: No.

Judge: He didn’t tell you about these things?

Vakhidov: No, he didn’t…

Judge: What is your attitude regarding an Islamic state in our country?... We just want to know your thoughts.

Vakhidov: I was not involved in politics before. I never paid attention, even to television. If [it is done] peacefully, if everyone supports it, if no one is hurt, I could support an Islamic state. But, if [it were established] by other means, I would be against it.

Judge: Is there anything else you would like to add?

Vakhidov: Our classes were like in school: we waited for the teacher and he came and taught us about the Koran and gave us sura [chapters of the Koran] to learn by heart, and we just prayed and went home. There is nothing else I can add.²⁰⁶

Another defendant, Jamshid Azimov, stated simply, “I didn’t think it was a crime to go to a house for classes.”²⁰⁷ He and Vakhidov were each sentenced to eight years in prison and confiscation of their property.

Abdurakhim Abdurakhmonov worked as a religious teacher in the government-run Kokoldosh medresseh in Tashkent from 1991 to 1995. His case includes a number of features typical of the arrest campaign—multiple arrests, torture, incommunicado detention, and conviction on highly suspect charges—and merits detailed description. Abdurakhmonov served as imam of the religious school from 1995 to 1996, when the Muslim Board dismissed him for stating his agreement with Imam Nazarov in the debate over the elder imam’s alleged disobedience.²⁰⁸ Abdurakhmonov reportedly had attended Nazarov’s sermons at Tokhtaboi mosque before the imam was removed and had gone occasionally to the well-known religious leader for advice.²⁰⁹

He was first detained on January 17, 1998, along with four other men, following a visit to Imam Nazarov’s home in Tashkent.²¹⁰ All five men were released, but police burst into Abdurakhmonov’s house the next night, January 18, dragged him from bed, beat him, stuck a gun in his elderly father’s mouth, and arrested them both. Police held him in detention overnight and beat him severely in custody.²¹¹ According to his wife, when she saw him next day—police brought him along as they searched his home—he was pale and could barely speak or stand. He later told her that police had beaten him on the head until he lost consciousness, and that they resumed the beatings each time he woke.²¹² He was released with the payment of a fine (it is unclear whether or not he was formally charged under the administrative or criminal code). A person close to the case reported to Human Rights Watch that the imam was diagnosed with brain damage and had required an operation and long-term hospitalization for his head injuries following his release.²¹³

Abdurakhmonov was again arrested in June 1998 on charges of falsifying his passport and narcotics possession.²¹⁴ The judge stated in his verdict that Abdurakhmonov and a co-defendant had “partially confessed” that they had arranged to have their passports altered to facilitate doing business in Kyrgyzstan. The judge dismissed the charge of illegal possession of narcotics.²¹⁵ Convicted of having a falsified passport, he was sentenced to two years in prison, but as this statute fell under the presidential amnesty of 1998, Abdurakhmonov was released from the courtroom on December 5, 1998.²¹⁶ The doctor who examined Abdurakhmonov upon his release found that he had a concussion, a broken rib, and bruised kidneys, as well as nerve damage to his spine so severe that the then-thirty-year-old man could no longer sit or stand upright.²¹⁷

Abdurakhmonov was later obliged to report for police questioning about the activities and possible whereabouts of Obidkhon Nazarov, but he refused to become an informant.²¹⁸ At one point, police accused him of having taught members of Hizb ut-Tahrir.²¹⁹ Police re-arrested him shortly thereafter, on or about April 27, 2000, and held him incommunicado for two months, the duration of the pre-trial investigation.²²⁰

During this period, investigator Khalkhon Juraev of the Procuracy General denied Abdurakhmonov’s wife any contact with him and refused to inform her of the reason for his arrest.²²¹ She did not know his whereabouts but was too frightened of the authorities to pursue the question aggressively, which reflects the experience of other detainees’ relatives. She explained that she was “afraid to go to the MVD because they will lock me up in a room and threaten to do things to me if my husband doesn’t confess, then they will threaten my husband that they will rape me and then he’ll confess to everything. This is what I’ve been told.”²²²

The family reported that during the investigation—from April to July 2000—at least three attorneys refused to defend Abdurakhmonov. They explained to the family that security agents had followed them and had put them under intimidating surveillance when they had represented him in the past.²²³ But the defendant did not have state representation either. The state failed to appoint any lawyer to represent Abdurakhmonov during the investigation of his case and to attend police interrogations. A state-appointed lawyer for the defense appeared for the first time at trial, and then only for the first two hearings.²²⁴

In its indictment of Abdurakhmonov, the state charged him with “Wahhabism” and with being part of a criminal group along with Imam Nazarov. He was accused of having recruited young men for terrorist training camps abroad and plotting to explode the Charvok dam, north of Tashkent. The court sentenced him to seventeen years of imprisonment on charges of attempt or conspiracy to commit terrorism, conspiracy to overthrow the state, attempt or conspiracy to commit subversion, incitement of national (ethnic), racial, or religious enmity, organization of a criminal group, polygamy, and illegal possession of arms or ammunition.²²⁵

The most damning evidence against Abdurakhmonov at his second trial was a written statement confessing to all of the state’s charges. When given the opportunity to testify in court, however, Abdurakhmonov recanted this confession, stating it was coerced under torture, and conceded only that he had previously met with several so-called Wahhabis. He insisted that he had not been involved in any criminal act. According to an observer at the trial, “He said, ‘If you think it is a crime to talk with religious people, then I confess to that.’”²²⁶ But the verdict states that Abdurakhmonov—along with the disappeared imam Abduvali Mirzoev, the IMU leaders Tokhir Iuldash and Juma Namangani, and Bakhrom Abdullaev and others—had led a criminal group aiming to destabilize the government of Uzbekistan and establish an Islamic state by force.²²⁷ The judgment loosely links Abdurakhmonov to well-known militants and people labeled “religious extremists,” but relies on sweeping allegations. Furthermore it does not detail specific actions of his that violated the law, nor, therefore, any evidence connecting Adburakhmonov to a crime.

With regard to the recruitment charge, Judge Shukurov’s verdict makes allegations as to Abdurakhmonov’s allegiance and intentions, without providing evidence. For example, the verdict states that Abdurakhmonov “supported” a call to establish an organization called “Tizhoratchi” (tradesmen) and that this group’s members sent five hundred men to military training camps abroad. Abdurakhmonov himself is not named as a member of Tizhoratchi, is not alleged to have sent anyone to a military camp, and his “support” of the group is not elaborated upon in the verdict. It is unclear whether the court reviewed other evidence that was not presented at trial. The verdict also asserts that Abdurakhmonov conspired with others to explode a water reservoir in Charvok, but again points to no specific act to uphold this statement.²²⁸

The verdict states that police arrested Abdurakhmonov while he was in the process of “preparing together with members of a religious extremist movement to carry out pogroms and terrorism in Uzbekistan,” but devotes only one sentence of the verdict to this assertion and gives no indication that any evidence was available to prove it.²²⁹ The judge further claimed that witness testimony offered proof of Abdurakhmonov’s guilt, but examination of the testimony as recounted in the verdict reveals that seven of the eight witnesses stated only that Abdurakhmonov prayed and that he had been arrested previously in 1998. None of the seven witnesses’ testimony, which was summarized in the verdict, referred to Abdurakhmonov having committed a crime.²³⁰ The eighth witness claimed to know that Abdurakhmonov was part of a “Wahhabi movement” but did not define the term. He also testified that the imam and another man had asked him to make copies of a tape about jihad and that he had once overheard a conversation in Abdurakhmonov’s house about authorities’ arrest of Muslims and the need to change the system and to establish an Islamic state through jihad.²³¹

The verdict focused heavily on Abdurakhmonov’s Islamic studies and influences, including studies with Imam Nazarov and attendance at that imam’s Friday prayer services.²³² The ruling acknowledges that Imam Abdurakhmonov stated that he had no relationship to Hizb ut-Tahrir or any other “religious extremist organizations.” It further notes that Abdurakhmonov testified that he had not committed any crime against the government nor any crime related to extremism, fundamentalism, or separatism. He said he had had no thoughts of undertaking terrorism or aggression. And he admitted only to having studied Islam during the period in question.²³³ The verdict does not elaborate in any way on the origins of the charge of possession of illegal weapons or ammunition. It does not discuss the charge or provide support for it. The judge nonetheless ruled that Abdurakhmonov was guilty on this charge. Human Rights Watch attended the twenty-minute Tashkent City Court appeals hearing of Abdurakhmonov’s case.²³⁴ His state appointed lawyer failed to note the procedural violations in the first trial and presented a defense of her client seen often in earlier political cases, a defense that conceded the state’s charges and asked simply for leniency on the basis of his youth and for the sake of his children.²³⁵ After a two-minute break to deliberate, the three-judge panel ruled to uphold the lower court’s decision. At this writing, Imam Abdurakhmonov is in Zangiota prison.

Followers

Over the years, local rights defenders agree, not only well-known imams but also many of their followers or perceived followers have been detained or arrested during the government campaign against independent Islam. The government has particularly targeted people it perceived as followers of Imam Nazarov. Their estimates of numbers vary from several hundred to several thousand,²³⁶ but this discrepancy is not surprising, as some detainees are released uncharged and others held incommunicado, or on misdemeanor charges for varying periods. In addition, many detainees are picked up more than once, as part of a pattern of ongoing harassment and surveillance of independent Muslims. Those who are released are often reluctant to discuss their detention with human rights organizations; sometimes because they were forced to name friends or acquaintances as criminals, pay a bribe to police, or agree to inform on others after being released, and sometimes simply out of fear of re-arrest. Others were detained multiple times before being formally arrested, convicted, and sentenced to prison terms.

Police action against people associated with Imam Nazarov began as early as 1996, just after the Muslim Board dismissed Nazarov from his position as imam.²³⁷ Later, police arrested not only those with a direct relationship with Nazarov, but also those with only a loose affiliation to the imam, including people who at one time attended his mosque, listened to his sermons, or possessed tapes of those sermons. Local human rights activist Vasila Inoiatova, who has attended dozens of trials of men brought up on religion-related charges, spoke of the on-going persecution of those “connected” with Nazarov, “...[A]ll these people who listened to his sermons or kept tapes [of Nazarov] are being arrested because of it.”²³⁸ As noted above, Imam Nazarov’s wife testified to the same phenomenon. “About 5,000 people went to his mosque,” she said of her husband, “but there are also many [who’ve been] arrested as his followers, but who never really went to his mosque, … who didn’t know him at all. Just because they had his tapes, they were arrested.”²³⁹ Another person close to the Nazarov case told Human Rights Watch that police targeted not only his students and congregants, but also those who “invited him to their homes at one time or were in the same room [as he] one day or drove him home—just people who showed him respect. Law enforcement agents followed [him] and video taped him and found those people—even people who only met him once.”²⁴⁰ “People who listened to his tapes were also arrested,” the source reported, recalling that one man had been arrested for listening to a tape of the imam reading from the Koran.²⁴¹

The cases of two men, arrested together in 1998, typify what Human Rights Watch has learned about prosecutions of those accused of following independent imams in their alleged anti-state activity.

Abdurashid Isakhojaev was a worker in an industrial plant who frequented many mosques, including that of Imam Obidkhon Nazarov, with whom he formed a loose friendship and from whom he obtained basic religious instruction. Isakhojaev attended the Friday services at Nazarov’s Tokhtaboi mosque. He also met the imam at celebrations at the Nazarov home; he attended a wedding there and also the birthday of a child. When he suffered a work-related spinal injury in 1991—an injury that made him an invalid—Imam Nazarov visited him in the hospital. Isakhojaev and some of his schoolmates invited Imam Nazarov to participate in a “gap,” a men’s discussion group. At the “gap” Nazarov taught the young men basic Islamic rituals, such as how to pray and how to prepare bodies for a Muslim funeral. He also called on them to live clean lives, to be honest, and not to drink alcohol.²⁴² According to Isakhojaev’s family, these interactions formed the extent of the young man’s relationship with the famous imam.

After Nazarov vanished in March 1998, local police briefly detained and interrogated Isakhojaev, along with estimated hundreds of other “followers” of Nazarov. At the precinct house, officers beat the young man while barraging him with questions about his religion and Imam Nazarov. He pleaded with the officers not to beat him on his injured back, but while questioning him about Nazarov, they focused their physical abuse on the area of his injury. The police asked him, “Where is Obid Kori?”²⁴³ and “Why do you wear a beard?”²⁴⁴ They released him after instructing him to find a cassette of Nazarov’s sermons that they were seeking, bring it to them, and shave his beard.²⁴⁵ Isakhojaev’s mother (born 1937) told Human Rights Watch, “I told him he was ill and would not survive torture, and I pleaded with my son to shave.”²⁴⁶ But Isakhojaev did not shave his beard.

On June 21, 1998, after his place of work closed unexpectedly, Isakhojaev’s friend Odil Isaev drove him to the Chilanzar mayor’s office, where he intended to make inquiries about it. As he approached the office, two men roughly detained both Isakhojaev and his friend. They pulled Isaev out of the car, beat him, and planted narcotics in his car before moving both detainees to MVD police headquarters in Tashkent.²⁴⁷ That evening eight or nine officers, saying they were MVD and entering without a warrant, searched Isakhojaev’s family’s house. They focused on one room they evidently believed to be his.²⁴⁸ Police concluded their search with the triumphant assertion: “We’ve got all we needed”—holding up a grenade.²⁴⁹ When Isakhojaev’s father-in-law accused them of planting the weapon, the officers forcibly removed him from the premises. Then the police took religious literature from the house, including copies of hadith. Later they compelled Isakhojaev’s wife to sign their report verifying the search, reportedly telling her: “Your husband is in our hands. If you want to give him food and a jacket, you’d better sign.”²⁵⁰ The religious materials were later deemed permissible and returned to the family.²⁵¹

Police informed Isakhojaev’s family that the young man had refused legal representation, but then assigned a state lawyer to him. That lawyer told the family that Isakhojaev had confessed to all of the charges against him but did not specify those charges.²⁵² On February 14, 1999, seeing his mother for the first time since his arrest, Isakhojaev told her that police had held him in the basement of the MVD for twenty-four days and that officers had tortured him there.²⁵³ He reportedly said that during interrogation, police beat him badly and tried to force him to give testimony against Imam Nazarov. Police questioning had focused exclusively on Nazarov, with no questions at all about the narcotics they claimed to have found in Isakhojaev’s possession.²⁵⁴ In response, Isakhojaev wrote a statement about Nazarov’s kindness to him after his accident and participation in the men’s discussion group. The investigator allegedly tore up Isakhojaev’s statement, saying, “We don’t need your fairy tales.”²⁵⁵ Eventually, police succeeded in extracting a statement from Isakhojaev that incriminated him for helping Imam Nazarov spread ideas of “Wahhabism.”²⁵⁶

Isakhojaev’s trial at the Chilanzar District Court began on October 30, 1998. The judge, K.H. Toshmatov, allegedly recommended that the family hire his court secretary as the lawyer for the defense and said that this would help the young man’s chances. The family hired the judge’s secretary and paid her for this service, but said they felt afterwards that she had not helped at all.²⁵⁷

At trial, according to the defendant’s mother, Isakhojaev was bent over and barely able to sit up. The only witnesses called were two men who had been stopped on the street by police after Isakhojaev was detained and who signed a document saying that police had shown them the drugs they claimed to have found on the young man.²⁵⁸ There were discrepancies in the state’s assertions about the “discovery” of the drugs on Isakhojaev, but this did not affect the trial.²⁵⁹ What the trial, like the investigation, focused on was Imam Nazarov and the defendant’s relationship to him. When the judge questioned Isakhojaev about Imam Nazarov, the young defendant recalled the imam’s visit with him in the hospital and the development of his own spiritual faith, which sprang from having survived his infirmity and being able to have children.²⁶⁰

The judge ruled that Isakhojaev was an active participant in a forbidden religious movement.²⁶¹ Judge Toshmatov further found that from February 1992 to July 1998, Isakhojaev “...actively participated in the activities of the religious trend ‘Wahhabism,’ led by Obid Kori Nazarov, [who] illegally operated in the territory of the Republic under the mask of religious belief, for the purposes of spreading the ideas of this religious trend among the population, gathered people in his neighborhood and mosques and called them to join the ‘Wahhabi’ movement...”²⁶² The judge’s verdict goes on to point to Nazarov’s participation in the men’s discussion group or “gap” as further evidence of Isakhojaev’s active involvement in calling people to “Wahhabism.” In the court’s opinion, the imam’s participation in the group was directed to discussing establishment of an Islamic state based on Islamic law.²⁶³

Judge Toshmatov sentenced Isakhojaev to eight years in a general-regime prison for illegal possession of narcotics, possession of weapons or ammunition, and organization of, or participation in, a banned social association or religious organization.²⁶⁴

Initially unable to learn where he was incarcerated, Isakhojaev’s family finally succeeded in locating him, in Jaslyk prison, the country’s harshest facility, where his poor condition and bruised body indicated that he had been beaten by guards.²⁶⁵ All of the family’s attempts to have him transferred to the central prison infirmary in Tashkent failed, as authorities either handed off the requests to other bureaucrats or responded with hostility.²⁶⁶ Meanwhile, after the trial authorities intimidated and harassed Isakhojaev’s family—detaining a younger brother, Muzafar, and harshly interrogating him because of his older brother’s perceived religious affiliation and his own religious practices.²⁶⁷

Odil Isaev, born in 1968, was arrested along with his friend, Abdurashid Isakhojaev, and accused of having been part of a “Wahhabi trend” led by Imam Nazarov.²⁶⁸ Isaev wore a beard and participated in the same men’s discussion group as Isakhojaev and Imam Nazarov.

On June 21, 1998, after driving his friend and co-worker, Isakhojaev, to the Chilanzar mayor’s office, he was detained by plainclothes agents who attempted to plant drugs on him. When he managed to get the narcotics, wrapped in a twenty-five-som note, out of his pocket, police reportedly laughed at his attempt to avoid having the contraband planted on him. “What, are you so rich that you can throw away money?” they taunted. Then they reportedly planted an even larger amount of marijuana in Isaev’s car and placed him under arrest.²⁶⁹

Odil Isaev was tried before Judge Toshmatov in the Chilanzar District Court just one day before Isakhojaev’s trial. He was sentenced to nine years in a strict-regime prison on charges of illegal possession of narcotics.²⁷⁰ In the decision against Isakhojaev, Judge Toshmatov noted that Odil Isaev was a member of the men’s discussion group that had included Imam Nazarov and that he and Isakhojaev were responsible for first inviting the imam to participate.²⁷¹ Isaev was sent to Jaslyk prison.

Fourteen Accused “Wahhabis:” Fergana, June 2002

In June 2002 the Fergana Province Court convicted fourteen men for having been “active members of an organized criminal religious extremist group that follows Wahhabism.”²⁷² The verdict was based on confessions that, according to the defendants’ testimony, had been coerced under torture.²⁷³ The defendants recanted their confessions in court, but the judge ignored the torture claims and sentenced the men to terms ranging from nine to seventeen years of imprisonment.

The prosecution charged that the defendants were “religious exremists” who recruited militants for the IMU and made plans to commit acts of terrorism on various factories in the Fergana Valley. The evidence brought forth to support these charges included a grenade, several bullets, and small quantities of narcotics. The defendants acknowledged only that they helped others to leave Uzbekistan to escape religious repression.²⁷⁴

Eight Accused “Wahhabis:” Tashkent, September 2001

On September 21, 2001, the Tashkent City Court handed down a verdict convicting and sentencing eight people for being members of a “Wahhabi organization” led by Imam Nazarov and another imam, Rukhiddin Fakhruddinov.²⁷⁵ One of the defendants was Fakhruddinov’s wife, Rakhima Akhmedalieva, whom the judge sentenced to seven years in prison.²⁷⁶ The verdict presented as compelling evidence against defendant Bakhtior Karimov police data from Andijan indicating the young man had attended Imam Mirzoev’s sermons prior to 1995.²⁷⁷ Another defendant testified that he had been a student of Imam Mirzoev in Andijan in the early 1990s, but denied the government’s charge that the imam had taught him and other students from “Wahhabi” books, saying Mirzoev only instructed them in prayer and the Koran.²⁷⁸

Thirteen Accused “Wahhabis:” Tashkent, December 2000-April 2001

Twelve men were arrested in 2000 and tried along with Imam Iuldashev. The state charged that during religion classes with Imam Iuldashev, the men had received not Koranic instruction, but lessons on “Wahhabism” and jihad. They were indicted on charges that included participation in a criminal group, distribution of extremist religious literature, and membership in a religious extremist organization. As to specific acts cited as evidence of their guilt, these related almost exclusively to expression and ideas. First, Iuldashev and his co-defendants were charged with distributing “Wahhabi” literature under orders from Imam Nazarov. No such literature is known to exist, and none was presented in court. The state also alleged that the men recorded and distributed broadcasts of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and BBC, which included criticism of government policies.²⁷⁹ Some of the defendants allegedly possessed audio and video cassettes of speeches made years earlier by imams Nazarov and Mirzoev. As the indictment noted, Islamic scholars from the official Kokoldosh mosque had reviewed the tapes for the Cabinet of Ministers and found that they contained “ideas of extremism, separatism, and fundamentalism.”²⁸⁰ One co-defendant, Dilmurod Sagdullaev, was supposedly caught in possession of “leaflets” titled, “Hurry to her, Muslims, the month of charity has arrived” and “Textbook for charitable people.”²⁸¹ The Cabinet of Ministers ruled that these materials advocated the establishment of an Islamic state through jihad.²⁸²

The men also allegedly owned a xerox machine, cell phones, a tape recorder, pagers, and a computer. These were not produced in court, but were mentioned in the indictment as evidence of criminal intent.²⁸³ The state further alleged that the men met twice in 1997 at public sports centers in Tashkent for exercise classes in preparation for “combat training for jihad.”²⁸⁴ The prosecution charged that the men collected money for a so-called baitulmol al-mal fund and were in possession of U.S. dollars.²⁸⁵

Dilmurod Sagdullaev denied all of the charges against him, including possession of “leaflets,” and acknowledged only that he took lessons in Islam.²⁸⁶ He was sentenced to ten years in prison.²⁸⁷ Defendant Khusan Maksudov “confessed” to having worked at Tokhtaboi mosque and having cooked for others during a trip to the mountains for “physical preparations” and lessons on religion led by Imam Nazarov. He also testified that he possessed tapes of Nazarov’s speeches and religious literature. He denied that he was a “Wahhabi.”²⁸⁸ Forty-nine-year-old Maksudov recounted that police tortured him in pre-trial detention and threatened to rape his wife.²⁸⁹ The court convicted Maksudov and fellow defendants Ulugbek Vakhidov, Abdukarim Mirzakhmedov, Jamshidbek Azimov, and Shukrullo Turaev and sentenced each to eight years in prison for organization of, or participation in, a religious extremist, separatist, fundamentalist or other banned organization and attempt to overthrow the constitutional order.²⁹⁰ Imam Iuldashev’s assistant in 1998 and 1999, Shukhrat Tajibaev, denied the state’s allegations that he established a religious extremist organization and plotted the overthrow of the state. He was treated the most harshly and was sentenced to eighteen years in prison.²⁹¹ Five of the thirteen defendants—Botir Amanov, Nizomiddin Alavutdinov, Rashid Makhmudov, Zhavlon Tokhtakhanov, and Ravshan Irmatov—were found guilty of failing to report a crime and given two-year suspended sentences, and fined 20 percent of their salary for two years.

Seventeen Accused “Wahhabis:” Tashkent, June-August 2000

The trial of seventeen men from Tashkent who studied Islam at home starkly typifies the government’s campaign against religious activity outside state controls. The state charged that their activities were part of a “Wahhabi trend” and that their “Wahhabi” group operated under the leadership of Imam Nazarov. In fact, at least two of the defendants had never met Nazarov. The group’s activities, according to the indictment, included study of the Koran and discussions on the need to establish an Islamic state and live by the rules of Islamic law.²⁹² According to the state prosecutor, “They pursued ideas of extremism, Wahhabism, and terrorism, and invited others to join...” He charged that the men obtained, copied, and distributed “religious extremist books” and propagated “Wahhabism.”²⁹³ The state alleged that money the men claimed to have collected for shared meals and to help poor neighbors was meant to buy weapons—though none was charged with weapons possession. Further, the state characterized the men’s participation in a semi-regular soccer game at a stadium in the city center as part of their “preparation to build an Islamic state.”²⁹⁴

The state indicted the men for conspiracy to seize power or overthrow the constitutional order of the Republic of Uzbekistan; organization of, or participation in, an illegal religious organization; establishment or leadership of, or participation in, a religious extremist, separatist, fundamentalist, or other banned organization; and distribution of “materials containing ideas of religious extremism, separatism, and fundamentalism” by a group and through abuse of office. Five of the seventeen defendants were charged with organizing a criminal association. The main defendant, Gafurjon Toirov, was also charged with illegal sale or acquisition of currency.

Some of the most appalling incidents in the case against the seventeen men took place long before they were brought to court. Police compelled at least six of the seventeen men to make public statements of contrition before congregations at state mosques, where government-sponsored Islamic leaders denounced them and warned others not to follow their example. The men were promised freedom in exchange for this public humiliation and vow of penitence, but police arrested them again soon after. Conditions of pre-trial detention were brutal for the seventeen men. Police allegedly kept them incommunicado for months, denied them access to legal counsel, and tortured them to force them to sign confessions. At trial, the men and their lawyers recounted the torture in detail, but Judge Sharipov ruled their testimony not credible and concluded, “No one tortured them.”²⁹⁵

The defendants²⁹⁶ denied that they were “Wahhabis” or involved in any kind of anti-state activity and claimed that their only “crime” had been to study Islam in private. They further claimed that the state failed to show that they had committed any act beyond this. The lawyer for Gairat Sabirov noted in his closing arguments, “During the trial...just one thing was proven, that he was studying religion.”²⁹⁷

Defendant Anvar Mirakhmedov said, “I lived in this country, was educated here. I never had anything against my country. I just wanted to learn the Koran, hadith, and be a real, pious Muslim. I just wanted to increase my knowledge.” Explaining his choice to participate in private religious instruction, defendant Otabek Makhmudov said, “Everybody asks us ‘Why do you learn religion at home, not at a mosque or university?’ If I go to the university, who will feed my family?” In an apparent attempt to bridge the gap between his legitimate practice of religion and the state’s demand that he ask for forgiveness, he added, “If reading the Koran is against the law, we admit that we made a mistake.”²⁹⁸ “I just want you to distinguish between real Muslims and militants,” defendant Faizullo Saipov told the judge.

Defendants Mansur Juraev, a twenty-two-year-old student at the Islamic university, and Gafurjon Toirov, had taught the others about Islam using the Koran. The state alleged that they had also taught the others that it was necessary to create an Islamic state by violent means and that they were leaders of a secret, illegal “Wahhabi” group intent on the violent overthrow of the government. In his testimony, Juraev said, “I proudly admit to the charges, I really taught these young men the Koran.” Regarding the men’s supposed participation in secret gatherings, Juraev noted, “The procurator asked us why we met secretly. I can’t distinguish between open and secret [here]. If we get together, should we hang a poster outside? We had dinner, we talked about prayer, but we didn’t hide from anybody.” Toirov echoed his co-defendants, explaining how he came to instruct the others in Islam, “I heard that there was an Islamic institute called Al Bukhari. I was preparing to join the Islamic university, and I don’t think I did anything wrong. Then I started teaching other people. I didn’t call anyone to go against our country.”

The defendants further rejected the state’s claim that the religious books found in their possession were “forbidden” or anti-constitutional. “Calling people to overthrow the country wasn’t our business. We did have religious books, though. If you go to any market, you can buy these books...they were not books against the constitution,” defendant Juraev told the court. As to charges that the group’s computer was purchased to produce anti-constitutional literature, Otabek Makhmudov’s lawyer noted, “Out of forty-eight diskettes, eleven had religious ideas, but nothing against the government or constitution... They’re being accused of having anti-government diskettes.”

Defendants acknowledged that they collected money for the needy, including at least one family of an accused “Wahhabi,” but denied that this amounted to wrongdoing. Outside the courthouse, a witness for the prosecution told Human Rights Watch that her brother had been convicted to five years in prison on fabricated charges of illegal possession of narcotics and a grenade. She said that a friend—one of the defendants—had given her family money, to help out, and that she had been summoned by police to serve as a witness in this case, to say that the defendants gave her family money.²⁹⁹ The state saw a conspiracy in the way the men had played soccer. They had taken part in “physical exercises in a Tashkent stadium,” according to the prosecutor, “in preparation for building an Islamic state...”³⁰⁰ The lawyer for Dilshod Unusov argued, “If they played soccer or exercised, does it mean they wanted to use it against someone? The President encourages sports, and now we’re accusing them of playing soccer!”³⁰¹

On August 21, 2000, Judge Sharipov ruled that the men had been members of a “Wahhabi” group involved in spreading “Wahhabi literature” and engaged in “physical exercises and military training in Pakhtakor stadium” with the aim of establishing an Islamic state.³⁰²

Some of the sentences passed down by the court shocked even the most experienced observers. Long-time rights defender Mikhail Ardzinov commented, “I thought they would get five or six years; this was frightening.”³⁰³ Judge Sharipov sentenced Gafurjon Toirov and Shukhrat Umarov to nineteen years in prison and Mansur Juraev to an eighteen-year term. Maksudbekov and Sobirov were sentenced to fifteen and fourteen years, respectively, while Mirakhmedov, Boimetov, Astankulov, Rakhmatullaev, Ibrahim Obidov, Iunusov, and Rakhimov received sentences ranging from ten to thirteen years. The court imposed slightly lighter sentences, nine years in prison or less, on defendants Bobokhonov, Islamov, Saipov, Kosymov, and Tokhir Obidov. The latter, Obidov, was found guilty only of participation in a banned religious organization and was sentenced to three years and six months incarceration, reduced pursuant to a December 1998 presidential amnesty to one year and three months.³⁰⁴

Fifteen Accused “Wahhabis:” Tashkent, June-November 2000

In a related case, Tashkent City Court Judge Yusupov convicted fifteen men in November 2000 for taking classes on Islam.³⁰⁵ The fifteen men³⁰⁶ were accused of having studied the Koran and hadith in private classes or gatherings with a man named Rakhmatullo. As in the case against the seventeen accused Wahhabis, the state charged that these fifteen men took classes about the Koran and learned basic Arabic and that, as classes progressed, Rakhmatullo and other private instructors discussed holy war with them.³⁰⁷ Also reminiscent of the earlier case, the state charged that the men played sports in a local stadium as part of their preparation for establishing an Islamic state and were engaged in military training during a two-day trip to a children’s recreation camp.³⁰⁸ The defense argued that all the men did at the children’s camp was play soccer and go swimming.³⁰⁹

The state indictment of the fifteen men labeled them “Wahhabis” and “members of a Wahhabi trend.”³¹⁰ It alleged that they were operating under the leadership of Imam Nazarov, but failed to flesh out the supposed connection with Nazarov.³¹¹ For their part, the defendants denied that they had even met the famous imam.³¹²

Defendant Kakhramon Saidkhodjaev acknowledged that he had participated in religious study with one Rakhmatullo since 1996, but said that the supposed anti-state content of the classes was fabricated by police, who had forced him to sign a statement saying that Rakhmatullo had taught him about jihad.³¹³ Defendant Mamurjon Musaev testified, “We were never involved in terrorism. We were just following God’s Koran and hadith and following Muhammad’s sunna [example].”³¹⁴ Other defendants claimed that police had arrested them for praying and for their strong belief in God. Defendant Makhmud Abdullaev said, “When I was taken to the basement of the MVD, they asked me if I prayed. When I said yes, they asked why. They asked why I didn’t drink and go out with girls. It was then that I found out that I could be arrested for praying.”³¹⁵ Meanwhile, defendant Kamol Shokasimov declared simply, “We’re here for praying, for believing in God. All the rest is false.”³¹⁶

The court sentenced the fifteen men to prison terms ranging from six to nineteen years. They were all found guilty of attempted overthrow of the state; organization of, or participation in, a banned religious group; and organization of, or participation in, a religious extremist, separatist, fundamentalist or other banned organization. Defendant Shukhrat Balikov, who was sentenced to nineteen years, was also convicted of illegal possession of weapons or ammunition (on the basis of a signed confession to the state’s claim that he had detonators in a tape recorder) as well as the import of contraband, organization of, or participation in, a criminal association, and distribution of literature that contains fundamentalist, separatist, or extremist ideas.