TASHKENT, Uzbekistan - A leading human rights group has urged the United States to designate Uzbekistan, a key ally in the war on terrorism, a "country of particular concern" with regard to religious freedom.
In a letter Wednesday to Secretary of State Colin Powell, New York-based Human Rights Watch said that Uzbekistan "has imprisoned and persecuted those whose peaceful practice of Islam falls beyond government controls."
The letter followed an appeal this week by families of Uzbek prisoners convicted of religious extremism to international human rights groups. Relatives of jailed members of the outlawed Islamic group Hizb-ut-Tahrir said their sons and husbands were forced through beating and intimidation to confess to accusations of extremism. The families allege that the mistreatment has continued in prison.
Hizb-ut-Tahrir is a secretive organization that aims to unite all Muslims under a caliphate ruled by Islamic Shariah law. It emerged in the Middle East and spread to former Soviet Central Asia in the 1990s. The group does not advocate violence.
Human rights groups estimate that Uzbekistan's staunchly secular government has jailed more than 4,000 people — mostly young men — on charges of extremism.
In their letter, the relatives said prisoners convicted of extremism are systematically beaten and humiliated by prison guards.
Earlier this month, two imprisoned Hizb-ut-Tahrir members died in custody. Human rights advocates said the men had been beaten and tortured to death for attempting to carry out religious rites in prison.
A third man died at home in May after he was released because of injuries sustained apparently from torture, Human Rights Watch said.
The group urged U.S. President George W. Bush to designate Uzbekistan a "country of particular concern" — a label he can give under the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act. The designation can lead to limitations of certain kinds of assistance or full sanctions.
"This year, the Uzbek government has been utterly unrelenting in its arrest campaign," Elizabeth Anderson, head of Human Rights Watch's Europe and Central Asia Division, said in a statement.
"It is undermining the Bush administration's principle that the war against terrorism not be a war against Islam."
Uzbekistan has been a key U.S. ally since last fall when it offered bases and air space for the war in Afghanistan. More than 1,000 U.S. troops are currently deployed in southern Uzbekistan. On Thursday, the United States delivered dlrs 35 million worth of humanitarian aid to the former Soviet republic.
Human Rights Watch said neighboring Turkmenistan should also be designated a "country of particular concern."
Turkmenistan — ruled by President Saparmurat Niyazov, who has built a personality cult around himself and tolerates no dissent — has outlawed all religions except the Sunni branch of Islam and Russian Orthodoxy.