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Uzbekistan Wages War On Islamic Dress - Yusuf. - 07-19-2004
http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/rights/eav062104.shtml
UZBEKISTAN WAGES WAR ON ISLAMIC DRESS
Esmer Islamov: 6/21/04
Samariddin Sharipov
Uzbekistan has recently stepped up a crackdown on female Islamic dress as part of its ongoing campaign against Islamic radicalism. The restrictions take place as official community councils, or makhallas, take on a growing role in providing religious counseling and education to Uzbek believers.
The Uzbek constitution bans wearing religious dress in public, but, to many, the official targeting of women in headscarves and hijab, a robe that covers the entire body, only reflects the government’s growing suspicion of independent practitioners of Islam. The government has blamed Islamic radicals for the March 28-31 bomb attacks on Tashkent and Bukhara, but some Western observers have stated that the violence appeared intended as an act of political protest against the rule of President Islam Karimov. [For background see the EurasiaNet Insight archive].
A controversial decision to ban Muslim headscarves in a school in Uzbekistan’s Ferghana Valley, the country’s religious heartland, illustrates the political stakes involved. [For backgrounds see the EurasiaNet Insight archive].
Gulnora Salokhiddinova, a 14-year-old girl from the village of Margilan, was sent home from school earlier this year after wearing an Islamic headscarf to class. After a general assembly was held to criticize Salokhiddinova, she temporarily quit school, only to return to classes later without her scarf.
Speaking with EurasiaNet, Salokhiddinova’s grandfather stated that the family interprets the attack as an assault on their faith. Adding to the sense of injury; Salokhiddinov’s father is among the hundreds arrested as a suspected member of the Islamic radical group Hizb-ut-Tahir following the March attacks. [For background see the EurasiaNet Insight archive].
"There is no law prohibiting Muslim scarves!" said Sadriddin Salokhiddinov. "No such law! If parliament issues such a law, then OK, we would admit our fault."
So far, the Uzbek government has responded cautiously to reports of the incident. Shoazim Minovarov, chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers’ Committee on Religious Affairs, which has received numerous such complaints in recent months, stated that the school’s decision to "persecute" people for wearing headscarves was "unlawful." But the school’s principal, Zafar Amirov, believes that forbidding the scarf is his duty as a teacher.
"Students at school must wear a uniform," said Amirov, who asserted that he had not received orders "from higher up" to ban the scarf. "We must gradually reform this girl."
Such a desire to stay in line with – or even go beyond – the official policy on sanctioned forms of Islam has gained greater play in the two and a half months since the attacks that killed some 47 people in Tashkent and Bukhara. [For background see the EurasiaNet Insight archive].
Nonetheless, many Uzbeks are afraid to report harassment linked to their religious affiliations. Salokhiddinova said that the school’s staff and students would only express support for her decision to wear the headscarf in private. "Many students and even teachers told me, ‘We would love to wear Muslim scarves, follow the rules of God, but we are scared,’" she said.
That fear appears to also extend to the urban centers targeted in this year’s attacks. One Bukhara woman, a market vendor who asked not to be named, told EurasiaNet that police would only allow her to wear hijab in public if she would show her passport for authorization. The officers stated that the ban on hijab and headscarves was "a temporary measure," the woman said.
Such "temporary measures" have increased in frequency as neighborhood councils, or makhallas, have begun to assist police in their surveillance of citizens suspected of links to extremist groups. In Bukhara, for instance, Nazira Ismailova, the chairperson of makhalla #8, keeps a special file on "Dangerous Groups," families deemed security risks because they have relatives working abroad or children under the age of 18 whose "immature minds," according to Ismailova, could be influenced by Islamic extremists.
"There are two women in our makhalla who wear hijab," Ismailova said. "Presently, we take preventive measures for them. They wear headscarves and long dresses covering the whole body. They are very timid, but we still monitor them."
Shukhrat Ganiyev, a Bukhara-based human rights defender, said that in the past month he has received complaints from 25 groups of people related to violations of religious rights by the police or makhalla committees.
"They [the makhalla committees] hold so-called prosecutorial courts during which they remonstrate people who dress differently," said Ganiyev. "It is a dangerous trend. It is a divisive issue and ...they should stop it."
Each Tuesday, religious guides called "otin oyilar" or "learned women" gather at a neighbor’s house to instruct neighborhood women and girls on the essentials of Islamic beliefs and religious practices. Such "moving" mosques exist in almost all makhallas in the Ferghana Valley, often serving as a replacement for mosques that have been closed by the authorities.
In justifying their bans on hijab and headscarves, makhallas and schools explain that Uzbekistan is a secular state. Despite the constitutional ban on religious clothing, however, no clear consensus exists on whether that provision applies to women’s Islamic headscarves.
The growing role for makhallas in instructing Muslim women could take on even greater significance as authorities continue with arrests of Muslims seen as linked to Hizb-ut-Tahir or other unregistered, independent religious organizations – an illegal offense according to Uzbek law.
Most recently, police arrested some 100 Muslims in the southern Ferghana Valley region of Kashkadarya this May on charges of drug possession and membership in an alleged Islamic radical organization called Jamaat, Forum 18 has reported.
Among those caught up in the sweep is the oldest son of Abidkhan Nazarovon, a popular former immam of Tashkent’s Toktabai mosque, whose sermons calling for women to adopt hijab were heard by hundreds each week. Arrested on May 17, Nazarovon’s whereabouts remain unknown.
Editor’s Note: Esmer Islamov and Samariddin Sharipov are independent journalists in Uzbekistan.
Uzbekistan Wages War On Islamic Dress - Muslimah - 07-19-2004
as salam alykom
O la hawla wala qowata ila billah, one more place combating Islam Alhamdulelah may Allah find us a way out.