One by one, the defendants file into the large steel cage. There are 10 of them, young men in their mid-20's. Some wear jeans and sweatshirts – and defiant expressions. Others appear bruised and frightened.
Soldiers in desert camouflage fatigues and black jackboots ring the cage, which runs along one wall of the Akmal Ikramov District Court. Outside, sheep graze next to Tashkent Police Station No. 2, and anxious relatives mill around a fountain, waiting for the courthouse to open its doors.
Today is the last day of hearings, and the verdicts will be handed down. The mothers, grandmothers, sisters and wives of the accused murmur prayers and recite verses from the Koran, though many of them know that praying won't save their sons and husbands.
Judge Rustamov Nizam is presiding, and in these parts of Central Asia he has a reputation for dispensing swift justice. He sits at a raised plastic-laminate table, beneath the blue, white and green seal of Uzbekistan with its crescent and stars, looking supremely self-confident -- as if he has the power over life and death, which he does.
''Silence,'' he commands, and a hush falls over the courtroom. This afternoon, the 10 defendants will get their only chance to say their piece, to beg the court's forgiveness and to ask for clemency -- not that it's likely to be forthcoming. They all stand accused under Article 159 of the criminal code of undermining the constitution. But their real crime is religious fanaticism, of wanting an Islamic state. It's a serious offense in this former Soviet cotton colony, where the government of the onetime Communist Party boss, Islam Karimov, has ruled with an iron fist since the days when the Red Army used Uzbek bases to occupy neighboring Afghanistan. Today, thanks to a three-year crackdown following a terror attack, leaders of the Islamic opposition are all either in jail or in exile.
In many respects, President Karimov is no different from the region's other strongmen, whose abysmal human rights records and bizarre notions of democracy appear to have been inspired more by Genghis Khan than by George Washington. But Uzbekistan is America's newest ally in the war against terror, and any rumblings in the State Department over Karimov's heavy-handed ways have been silenced since the Uzbek leader allowed American troops to use his desert nation as a beachhead for their assault on Afghanistan. The trade-off -- for a regime that was frequently snubbed by the Clinton administration -- is political legitimacy. In exchange for that precious commodity, Karimov granted access to a key air base in Khanabad, a few hundred miles north of the Afghan border, where more than 1,000 special light infantry rangers were immediately deployed. Until last week, his generosity had not extended to the ''Bridge of Friendship,'' the main link with Afghanistan, which had remained closed to all traffic – including essential food shipments.
But Uzbekistan, meanwhile, is free to continue its decadelong policy of persecuting anyone perceived as a threat to Karimov's authority. It just so happens that with all political dissent crushed, the targets of the current crackdown are about the only people left in the country who don't see eye to eye with the president: militant Muslims. That, of course, makes it a whole lot easier for Washington to look the other way.
''The accused Aliev will rise,'' Judge Nizam says. Mohamed Aliev stands in the steel cage. He is a slim young man, with shorn dark hair and a blue Adidas T-shirt. ''We are charged because of our beliefs,'' he begins. ''Because we are part of Hizb-ut-Tahrir. But we are not against the constitutional order.''
The judge interrupts him impatiently: ''You are confessing guilt but saying you're not guilty.'' Aliev doesn't know it, because like most of the other defendants he is not represented by legal counsel, but simply admitting membership in Hizb-ut-Tahrir is tantamount to treason in Uzbekistan, as the fundamentalist Islamic movement seeks to replace the secular state with the Caliphate, or religious rule.
''I demand that medical experts examine us to prove that we were beaten and tortured,'' says another defendant, Sayeed Ahbat, when it is his turn to address the court. Nizam cuts him off brusquely. ''If he was beaten, then he needs to write a statement of complaint -- I will not allow you to speak anymore,'' Nizam says, raising a pudgy hand. ''Next.''
Mohamed Sharatin rises unsteadily to make his statement. He is tall, handsome and athletically built. Tears stream down his broad face, which is purple and red in parts and badly swollen. ''I beg forgiveness,'' he begins, to which the judge nods approvingly. ''I confess to reading Hizb-ut-Tahrir literature.'' Sharatin's crime was to be caught in possession of a leaflet from the radical organization, which labels Bush a ''war criminal'' and calls on the faithful to rise up against the great ''Satan'' that is America. ''But I was simply curious and did not force anyone else to read it.''
Sharatin's curiosity could cost him 19 years in Jaslyk, the notorious penal colony opened two years ago in the salt beds and sand flats south of the shrunken Aral Sea. Specifically constructed to house the growing influx of religious prisoners, the new desert gulag has developed such a reputation for torture and tuberculosis that dissidents say the only way out of Jaslyk is in a body bag -- if the pretrial interrogation, or a firing squad, doesn't kill you first.
Uzbekistan's jails aren't confined to suspected religious fanatics. In 1995, for instance, when one of the country's former ambassadors to Washington fell out of favor with Karimov, his pregnant niece was hauled in on smuggling charges. Rather than release her on bail pending trial, as Uzbek law requires for expectant mothers, authorities aborted the fetus in a prison hospital.
The rest of the Hizb-ut-Tahrir defendants make their statements. Finally, a defense attorney, Rustam Rakhmatulaev, addresses the court. He speaks for barely two minutes, since the outcome of most trials here is a foregone conclusion. ''All the defendants have requested forgiveness under interrogation,'' he begins. ''None of them said anything bad about the president,'' he adds hopefully. Insulting Karimov, whose photograph hangs in the courthouse, as it does in hotel lobbies, storefronts and schools, and whose specter seems to hover everywhere in Uzbekistan like an unseen presence, is punishable by up to five years in prison.
''I request that the court be lenient,'' Rakhmatulaev says, concluding his summation. Uzbekistan's courts, however, are not inclined to mercy; not, at least, in instances in which religion threatens to impinge on affairs of state. Since the government declared its war on militant Islam in 1998, some 7,000 people, according to Human Rights Watch, have been imprisoned. Many of those were tortured and, in some cases, even killed for their religious beliefs. The campaign had drawn worldwide criticism for its arbitrariness and brutality; that is, until Sept. 11 changed the way most Americans look at the world.
And as Nizam calls for a recess before handing out a passel of 19-year sentences, it suddenly dawns on the relatives of the accused that they may not be seeing their sons or husbands for a long, long time. The families press forward, crying out, trying to reach through the steel bars for one last hug. The soldiers spring into action, linking arms and forming a human chain between the defendants and their loved ones. Slowly they push the wailing mothers, sisters and wives out of the courtroom.
Outside, Savara Umarova stands stunned by the fountain. ''My brother will be an old man when he gets out,'' she says, her voice shaky and barely audible. ''He's not a terrorist. He's just a believer.''
The toppling of the twin towers has indeed muddied the waters for critics of Uzbekistan's human rights record. They strongly suspect that the Bush administration's embrace of Karimov could backfire, as have past marriages of convenience to dictators like Manuel Noriega of Panama or the shah of Iran. It's hard to tell if the new relationship will prove quite that disastrous. But for the first time since the fall of the Soviet Union, Washington is pursuing a strong, overarching foreign policy goal; in this case, fighting world terrorism (and, of course, getting rid of Osama bin Laden and his Taliban cohort). And as we saw repeatedly during the cold war, such single-mindedness often leads to moral compromises, which often end up doing more harm than whatever is gained in the original pact.
''If Uzbekistan is going to be a strategic partner,'' Rachel Denber of Human Rights Watch says, ''then the burden is greater than ever for the Bush administration to use the leverage that it has to clean up the appalling human rights record. Otherwise, the people of Uzbekistan will draw the conclusion that the United States condones torture, unlawful arrests and other abuses.''
Nevertheless, Washington is likely to be very circumspect in criticizing its new partner in Central Asia. ''We have serious disagreements with the Uzbek government on human rights and an absence of democracy as we define it,'' says Joseph Presel, a career diplomat who served as American ambassador in Tashkent. ''On the other hand, Uzbekistan has been very helpful to us in the present circumstances, and it is my belief that the best way to foster the developments that we all want is through close and continuous engagement.''
It is unclear what engagement will accomplish in a country where the K.G.B.-schooled secret police have a hard time distinguishing pro-democracy demonstrators from hard-core Muslim militants. But nothing is simple in Central Asia. The fact is that the police-state tactics so criticized by the human rights establishment have allowed this isolated nation of 24 million to remain an oasis of relative stability in one of the most troubled corners of the globe. And Karimov's zero tolerance policy for Muslim extremism is not without its supporters both here and, increasingly, in Washington.
''I, too, am a believer,'' Feruza Insavaileov informs me when I call to tell her about the trial and ask if she can recommend someone to interpret from Uzbek, a Turkic tongue, into Russian, the lingua franca in post-Soviet Central Asia. ''But I support what the government is doing,'' she adds. ''I'll explain over lunch, if you want.''
We meet at the Aladdin restaurant in Independence Square, one site of a bloody 1999 bombing spree by the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan – the Afghan-based terrorist group that first announced itself a year or so earlier by decapitating a police chief and sticking his head on a stake. Security is tight around the grimy government buildings that surround the square, and Feruza, when she turns up, is pretty enough to turn many of the militiamen's heads. Twenty-three, and an administrative assistant two years out of college, Feruza says she has a story to tell that might better help me understand the ''complicated'' human rights situation in Uzbekistan. It's about her kid brother, she explains, and how he narrowly escaped a fate similar to the 10 convicted Hizb-ut-Tahrir members.
The story begins shortly after the collapse of Communism, when, after decades of imposed atheism, Uzbeks were suddenly free to explore their Muslim roots. At the time, missionaries were pouring into Uzbekistan from places like Pakistan, Egypt and, especially, Saudi Arabia, which flooded the country with Korans and started building hundreds of mosques.
In the Insavaileovs' neighborhood in one of the leafier suburbs of Tashkent, an abandoned mosque had reopened next to the cemetery, and one day a mysterious stranger showed up there. ''Some said he was from Pakistan or Tajikistan, and others were sure he was from right here in Tashkent,'' Feruza recalls. ''In any event, he had a long beard and torn robes, like the prophet.''
This stranger aroused the curiosity of many of the neighborhood kids and was apparently very charismatic. Soon, Feruza's 12-year-old brother, Eldor, and his friends were bringing the holy man food and spending more and more time at the old mosque.
''At first, I thought it was cute,'' she says, ''but then Eldor started acting strange.'' There was the constant praying and sermons about the evils of alcohol and tobacco. That Feruza's family could live with. But suddenly television and radio were also treacherous foreign inventions, and young Eldor wanted to throw the new color TV out of the house. Things just got weirder from there. ''It was like he was being brainwashed,'' she recalls.
Feruza invites me over to her house to meet Eldor and the rest of her family to get the full story. The Insavaileovs live in Kibray, about a 25-minute drive from the capital, just past the new presidential palace Karimov is building for himself. Their home is built around a large courtyard, with an ornate gazebo in the center, cherry trees, grapevines and a hand-cranked well. There is also a barn, where the family keeps its cows -- Zoya and Milka -- and 14 chickens. A satellite dish the size of a small automobile sits on the flat tile roof.
Feruza's father, Malik, greets us with a traditional Muslim prayer of welcome, followed by Russian-style vodka toasts. He is an onboard mechanic and navigator with Uzbekistan's cargo air carrier, and his job has taken him around the world: delivering food for the United Nations to sub-Saharan Africa, gold to Switzerland, sacrificial lambs to Saudi Arabia, generators to China.
Feruza's mother, Zera, an economist, joins us at the table, which is laden with fruit and traditional Tatar and Uzbek dishes. Soon the conversation turns to Eldor's flirtation with fundamentalism. ''Since we didn't know much about being Muslim, we initially approved of Eldor's interest in religion,'' Zera says. ''At first, he was teaching us what the proper prayers were, about Ramadan, things like that.''
After a few months of this, though, his behavior changed. ''Eldor became very aggressive toward women,'' Feruza recalls. ''He started insulting us and calling us immodest.'' Eldor began insisting that his sister wear a hijab, or scarf, and a robe to cover her limbs. ''He complained about the way Mom and I wore our hair, said it was sacrilege.''
It wasn't just at home that Feruza encountered this type of animosity. At the university, some boys who had gone abroad to study in madrasas returned with very different notions about how women should behave. It was becoming a national problem in Uzbekistan in the mid- to late 1990's, agrees Frederick Starr, a leading Central Asia scholar in Washington. ''Saudi foundations were paying for young Uzbeks to study in Pakistan or Medina, and these kids were coming back with their heads filled with crazy ideas,'' he says.
For Eldor, of course, the crazy ideas were available right in his own neighborhood. ''We started worrying about losing our boy to a cult,'' Malik recalls. ''It was as if he was becoming a different person.'' The family didn't know what to do at first. They consulted with the leaders of their mahallah, the powerful neighborhood organization in Uzbekistan that governs everything from family disputes to real-estate transactions. The neighborhood elders were equally stumped.
Around this time, the Karimov government was also grappling to find a solution to the growing problem of extremism. ''Obviously, it would be political suicide for us to be against Islam, because we couldn't oppose 90 percent of the population,'' says the deputy foreign minister, Sodyq Safaev. ''But we couldn't allow the Islamization of politics or the politicization of Islam. That would lead to chaos. We had to fight these foreign imports.''
Fortunately for Eldor, the family struck upon a solution well before the big government crackdown. By mutual agreement, it was decided that he would no longer visit the holy man and would avoid the mosque altogether. This proved to be the right choice. ''Where is Eldor now?'' I ask Feruza.
''He's probably tinkering with the car again,'' her mother suggests. ''Try him on his cellphone.''
Sure enough, he shows up a few minutes later in a dirty U.S.A. T-shirt, hands covered in motor oil. Cars, apparently, are one of his new passions, now that he's 19 and earning good money in sales for a textile mill. ''The new Mercedes C-Class Kompressor is my favorite,'' he says with the salesman's ready smile. ''But it's hard to get in Uzbekistan.''
He is also into Hollywood movies and pronounces Angelina Jolie's latest action thriller ''excellent.'' Looking at him, it's hard even to imagine the Eldor of old. He doesn't really want to discuss those confused times -- though he will talk your ear off about Pentium III chips -- but concedes that ''many of the things the imam told us at the mosque were wrong.''
The Insavaileovs, not surprisingly, are much relieved that their son saw the light. ''I'm glad Karimov is locking these Wahhabis up,'' Malik says. ''They are a menace to society.''
''Don't get me wrong,'' Zera says. ''I'm not against religion. I'm a believer. I just don't think I need to be covered from head to toe in a burka to prove it. It's like anything in life, moderation is best.''
That message, thanks in part to heavy doses of propaganda in the state-controlled media, appears to have gotten through in most parts of Tashkent, including some very unlikely places, as I discover the next day at the cockfights. The bouts are held every Sunday in an abandoned warehouse in the Kuluk industrial sector of town. It's not far from the women's prison and a psychiatric institute where a political activist was recently sent for protesting, among other things, the government's decision to bulldoze some homes to make room for a road.
The atmosphere around the ring is spirited, drawing hundreds of vocal gamblers, many of whom, with their black leather jackets, scars and tattoos, look downright scary. Several of these toughs take an unusual interest in the photographer I am traveling with, viewing his presence with clear suspicion. Finally one man jabs an accusing finger at the photographer's black beard. ''Wahhabi?'' he demands in a decidedly unfriendly tone. ''Yevrey,'' the photographer shoots back -- Jewish.'' The tension lifts immediately, and relieved grins crease the men's faces. ''Ah,'' one says, smiling. ''I'm a Muslim. Welcome.''
It's an odd but telling exchange, one that you would be hard pressed to witness in most other corners of the Muslim world. But Uzbekistan, because of its Soviet past, is a strange cultural crossroads: part Europeanized Politburo puppet, part proud inheritor of Tamerlane's 14th-century Golden Horde.
All this makes Islam an important part of the country's identity, especially since the break from Moscow in 1991. Devotion, far from being banned, is actively encouraged. Men openly walk around in dopas, the colorful Muslim caps. At Tashkent's tiny airport, hundreds of ghostly figures move about the predawn gloom: pilgrims in white robes making the hajj to Mecca. The city's huge central mosque -- erected by the Sheik Zainudin Foundation of Saudia Arabia in 1993 -- is nearly full to its 10,000-space capacity for Friday prayers. And on Saturday mornings you will find all 139 modestly veiled pupils from the Khadichi Kubra madrasa for girls studiously poring over their lessons. What you won't find there is any of the revolutionary rhetoric that has given madrasas in places like Pakistan the nickname ''Jihad U.''
''There is freedom of religion in Uzbekistan,'' Presel, the former ambassador, says. ''As long as you practice mainstream Islam.'' It's when you cross the line, he adds, that things can get a little dicey.
''His feet are still swollen, but he's put on a little weight and looks better,'' Irina Mikulina, a defense attorney, is reassuring the wife of a client she has just visited in jail. ''I brought him your letter, and the food.''
Her client, Imam Abduvahid Yuldashev, is serving a 19-year sentence under Article 159, which is something of a catchall provision in Uzbekistan's harsh criminal justice system. The Muslim cleric recently received 20 lashes with a bamboo baton on the sole of each foot for committing some minor prison infraction. He couldn't walk for a week, Mikulina says, but that was nothing compared with what he suffered during pretrial interrogation. ''The police put a lighter to his genitals,'' she says matter-of-factly, as if this sort of thing happened all the time. ''At first, he wouldn't tell me about it. He was too modest.''
The imam was luckier than some victims of police interrogations here, who, according to Human Rights Watch, are sent home wrapped in sheets soaked with blood, along with dubious explanations from the coroner's office attributing the cause of death to heart or kidney failure. Electric shock, beating and burning are routine tools of Uzbekistan's anti-Islamic inquisition, says Acacia Shields, a Human Rights Watch researcher who recently returned from a two-year posting in Uzbekistan. She adds that another tactic to elicit confessions involves stripping the accused's female relatives and threatening to gang-rape them in front of their loved ones.
Even some senior Uzbek officials acknowledge privately that the methods are at times excessive. ''We treat Muslim extremism as a cancer that has to be cut out,'' one says. ''But sometimes we act more like butchers than surgeons. It's, how would your Pentagon put it?'' he adds slyly, ''the collateral damage of dealing with such a large-scale problem.''
That's small consolation to Mikulina's clients, like Yuldashev. The 34-year-old cleric first ran afoul of the law in 1999, during the big roundup that followed the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan's bombing spree in Tashkent, which hospitalized hundreds and killed 16. Ten thousand people were detained in one week alone, Mikulina says, and the arrests were often arbitrary. Yuldashev was accused of Wahhabism, but his real crime, the attorney says, was preaching at a mosque where another outspoken imam had fallen out of favor with the authorities. Everyone associated with that imam and a dozen of Yuldashev's pupils were charged and promptly convicted, so that in the close-knit community where the Yuldashevs live you now see only very old men and very young boys -- as in wartime.
Several female relatives of the imam's imprisoned followers have gathered at his damp apartment to hear news from Mikulina about their loved ones. Mikulina does her best to reassure the veiled women, and her tough, no-nonsense manner seems to give them some strength. Away from her clients, however, she is not so upbeat. ''I'm losing hope,'' she told me on the way to the Yuldashevs'. ''Especially since the events of Sept. 11. Who is going to come to the defense of orthodox Muslims now? The government can do whatever it wants to them, and most people in the West will probably just cheer.''
She has a point. Watching Yuldashev's young wife, Omina, shyly prepare pomegranates and rice pilaf, or plov, as it is known here, I find myself not worrying about how much of a sacrifice this costly display of hospitality is for a family with no income but about the dirt on the unwashed fruit and the flies on the greasy plov. Casting an eye around the barren apartment, I wonder how anyone can choose to live without furniture, television or radio, as this family's adherence to the strict Wahhabi sect requires. And looking at Omina struggle with her four disheveled children, I feel more baffled than sympathetic.
Under her hijab, she is a very pretty young woman, blemished perhaps by her rare smile, which reveals a dowry of a dozen gold teeth. We don't speak much. Omina is too modest to talk to men, and I am the first male to set foot in the apartment since her husband's arrest. Only when she shows me photos of her husband do her dark eyes light up with real emotion. The photos themselves tell the story of a life transformed. The first shows a burly paratrooper with sergeant's stripes striking a virile pose in Red Square: Yuldashev as an 18-year-old conscript. Another, around 1991, captures a mustachioed young man on the make, in flared jeans, a suede jacket and an open-collar shirt. All that's missing is a few gold chains, and it could be an outtake from ''Saturday Night Fever.'' The third, most recent, photograph is a mosque ID in which Yuldashev appears intense beneath a long, pointed beard, a black robe and a dopa on his head. ''My husband is not a threat to anyone,'' Omina says. ''He is a good Muslim.''
It is hard to say for certain who here harbors revolutionary intentions and who is simply a victim of circumstance in the state's struggle to control people's minds. ''Karimov is far less concerned with keeping the world safe from Islamic terrorists than keeping himself in power,'' says Shields of Human Rights Watch, adding that the crackdown on religion is a thinly veiled attempt to stamp out dissent. Opposition parties are banned in Uzbekistan, and Karimov, when he does bother to run for re-election (he side-stepped a competitive ballot in 1995), hand-picks his challengers. (The last, in 2000, proclaimed loudly that he was voting for Karimov.)
In Washington, however, many are willing to give the Uzbek president the benefit of the doubt. ''Karimov would probably win a free and fair election,'' Presel says. ''The sad part is that he is unwilling to take the chance.''
As for the crackdown on religion, that, too, has some justification, say people who follow the region. ''Left unchecked, extremism could become a serious problem in Uzbekistan,'' says Glen Howard, a security expert on Central Asia. ''Civil war, maybe, like in Tajikistan,'' speculates Abdumannob Polat, an exiled opposition leader, when I ask him what the ultimate result would be if the government halted its campaign against fundamentalism.
While it remains to be seen if Washington will live to regret its alliance with the Karimov government, for now relations are rosy, and the Uzbek leader is basking in the glow of frequent photo ops with top White House officials. Indeed, cashing in on his enhanced prestige, Karimov just proposed a referendum to extend his current five-year term by two years.
Even Mikulina concedes that a majority of Uzbeks support Karimov's hard-line stand, though many get only a skewed picture of what is really going on because of the state's tight grip on the media. Omina Yuldashev found that out the hard way when she turned to her mahallah for financial assistance after her husband's arrest. Not only did community leaders turn her down, but they also subjected her to a humiliating mock trial and hate rally, in which neighbors denounced her and hurled insults at her jailed husband. ''They said I was an enemy of the people,'' she recalls.
Not so the Insavaileovs, whose mahallah just named them ''family of the year,'' an honor Feruza's parents cherish, prominently displaying the award photograph in their dining room. And as for Eldor, he has found a new idol to worship: Bill Gates. He even mailed the Microsoft founder a fan letter some months ago, telling him how much he admires the way he runs his company and crushes the competition. He is still waiting for Gates to write back.