New York Times - 10.30.2001

 

New York Times

Alliance With U.S. Spotlights Uzbek Rights Abuses

By C. J. Chivers

AMANGAN, Uzbekistan, Oct. 28 — The child in a knit cap and two sweaters insisted on a firm handshake and led the way down an alley. Passing through a courtyard, he slipped off his shoes and stepped into a room with women whose husbands are gone.

"No other men remain here," said his grandmother, brushing fingers across his head. "There is only him."

His name is Ibrahim Atakhamov. He is 6 years old and the man of his house. Throughout his extended family, every other man has been imprisoned — his father, his grandfather and four uncles or cousins who used to worship at the nearby Ota Ullohom mosque. They have been away for years.

The broken Atakhamov household, one set of victims in what human rights organizations describe as a sustained crackdown on religious freedom in Uzbekistan, illustrates the risks of an American gamble.

Earlier this month, President Islam A. Karimov opened his nation's air space and an airbase to the United States military, an arrangement that made Uzbekistan an important ally in the war against the Taliban.

But for all of its military utility, this developing relationship has raised questions among human rights advocates and members of Congress about whether the United States risks emboldening a totalitarian government that unabashedly persecutes its citizens.

In the short term, they are concerned that cooperation with Uzbekistan lends legitimacy to the republic's restrictions on faith, as well as a judicial system that tries people in secret and security forces that torture suspects and maintain inhumane jails.

In the long term, there are concerns that supporting a government that simultaneously represses democratic rights and the practice of Islam might spread unease in the larger Muslim world.

"To ignore Uzbek abuses could add fuel to the fire that this is not truly a war on terrorism, but is a war on Islam," Senator Paul Wellstone, Democrat of Minnesota, said last week as he introduced an amendment to a foreign operations bill that would require more monitoring of the human rights record.

Uzbekistan, a former Soviet republic, is essentially a nation occupied by its own army and security police. The countryside is littered with roadblocks, each with a small bunker nearby. The police search cars at will.

The news media are state-controlled. Demonstrations are rarely tolerated. Last week, officials in Namangan restricted the sale of gasoline and closed cafes to compel citizens into fields to pick cotton, which in Uzbekistan is done by hand.

Although religious practice is freer than it was during officially atheist Communist rule, the government still limits religion. Muslim activity is allowed only in government-approved mosques, holy books cannot be widely circulated and only clerics can wear religious attire.

In a report released last week, the State Department noted that "arbitrary arrest and detention of Muslim believers is common" in Uzbekistan, and described the use of torture — sometimes leading to sexual violence or fatal beatings — during interrogations of people accused of practicing Islam outside the narrow limits.

The report further noted that the police routinely planted drugs, ammunition and religious leaflets on citizens to justify arrests.

At least 7,000 Muslims have been arbitrarily incarcerated in Uzbekistan in recent years, according to Human Rights Watch, an organization monitoring the crackdown. In Namangan one of the first places to suffer was the neighborhood near the Ota Ullohom mosque.

The Soviet Union had turned the mosque into a winery. On Uzbekistan's independence in 1991, the families who live nearby restored the mosque and began building a madrassa, or religious school, next door.

Then the police came and began taking the men away. Uzbek and foreign human rights workers say more than 1,000 men affiliated with the mosque have been imprisoned, in many cases on the strength of planted evidence or confessions exacted through torture.

Tursonhom Atakhamova, 47, said her husband, Ahmadhom, 52, had helped in restoring the mosque until he was arrested in 1994 on what she said were contrived charges of drug possession. He was jailed until 1996. In 1998 the police took him again.

"The policeman promised to come back with him in two hours," she said, "but it didn't happen. They said it was about drugs, but in interrogations the things they asked were about building the mosque: `Who helped you? Who gave money for that?' "

He is kept in a cell, she said, that is designed for 10 inmates but holds 30. "The only things they can do is just sit on the floor, producing no sounds," she said. "Otherwise they will be beaten."

Since her husband's arrest, her sons — Abbashon and Muhammad, who is Ibrahim's father — have also been imprisoned. The last time Ibrahim saw his father was in June. The child recounted the visit, kneading his fingers and concentrating as he remembered. "He told me to be a good boy and to behave myself and obey my mother," he said.

Muriddin Umarova, 40, whose husband was charged with anti-state activities in 1999 and sentenced to five years in prison, noted with bitterness a national slogan promoted this year by President Karimov. "They proclaim this is the year of the mother and the child," she said. "But they do nothing for the mother and child except take away the father."

In another household, Makhmuda Kodirova, 47, said her husband, Aklbek Eshobaev, was arrested on the street in 1994. The authorities then went to her house, she said, planted marijuana and 13 bullets, videotaped the contraband and sentenced him to three years in prison. He is still in jail, she said, because whenever he is due for release they add more time.

The surviving man in her house is her son, Otabek, 15, whom she would not allow to speak because she feared that the police might take him, too.

All of these women said they hoped that the United States would press the Uzbek government for mercy.

Mr. Karimov, through spokesmen, declined requests for interviews for more than 10 days. In his sole appearance before the Western news media this month, he said that Uzbekistan had "shortcomings" in its standards of human rights but that conditions had improved.

"Look at the dynamics of these issues — who we were in 1991 and who we are today," he said, adding, "There is movement."

In the past, the Uzbek government has said imprisoned Muslims supported the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, a terrorist group believed to be fighting alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan.

But at the Ota Ullohom mosque and elsewhere, the crackdown predates the known existence of the terrorist group. The government has produced no credible evidence of a link, human rights advocates said.

One man said persecution continued because Mr. Karimov found it an effective way to control the populace. "The only aim is to keep the throne," said Akhmad Abdullaev, a human rights advocate.

Senator Wellstone, who supports American involvement in Uzbekistan, introduced legislation that would require the State Department to report regularly to Congress on aid provided to Uzbekistan, and to its military, police and security forces, and each force's involvement in human rights abuses. The amendment was passed by the Senate and is to be submitted to the House.

Today, after hundreds of convictions, the Ota Ullahom mosque is an extension of the state. A quote from Mr. Karimov is painted on a wall, together with an excerpt from the Uzbek Constitution guaranteeing citizens freedom of religion. There was also a billboard declaring 2001 the year of mothers and children.

The proclamation has produced a catchy anti-Karimov phrase: this is the year, the underground slogan goes, for widows and orphans.