Uznews.net, an independent emigre news site, has been reporting on the assassination attempt on Obid-kori Nazarov, an Uzbek emigre who lived in Sweden. An assailant shot him several times as he was on his way to noon prayers.
The uznews.net reporter could not get police to tell him much, but retracing the steps of the imam, he said clues might be frozen over with snowfall in the last few weeks since the assault.
Uznews.net interviewed a Swedish journalist who has also covered the story and tried to get information from police, but they are not indicating their lines of investigation.
The journalist believes it could not have been a racist or some kind of extremist from the area, as the police would have likely found him by now. It's a small town, and there are some video cameras in the area. Uznews.net believes that there might be something on a video camera, but they aren't everywhere.
While the town is small, it would be easy to flee from it after committee the murder attempt, the journalist reasoned.
The Uzbek government hasn't said anything, and hasn't denied the claims that it might be its intelligence agency that is responsible -- but then, they never comment on these cases.
Uzbek emigres have been organizing pickets demanding justice.
But the form the protest is taking -- like support for the conservative imam's teachings themselves -- have made some Uzbeks uneasy.
The picketers are raising green banners and shouting Allah Akbar!
They included members of the Popular Movement of Uzbekistan (PMU), an emigre group formed last year from political parties and activists who have been aggressive about their determination to get Karimov overthrown, and while not calling for violence, have been somewhat vague about just what sorts of civil disobedience they might call for. One of their leaders has already been murdered in the Russian town of Ivanovo -- now there has been this attack on Nazarov on February 22.
Abdujalil Boymatov, head of the Society for Human Rights in Uzbekistan, says he also calls for an international investigation of the attack on the imam, and he also believes that the Uzbek SNB is mixed up in it.
Uznews.net interviewed him:
Boymatov says he has some doubts about the intentions and capabilities of the Uzbek opposition in Europe to build a free democratic state in Uzbekistan.
"I first hear the shouts of 'Allah Akbar' in Namangan in 1991 from the leader of the future Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), Tahir Yuldash," says Boymatov. And now so many years later, I am hearing them repeated."
"I believe that the political forces fighting for power should not for any reason use religion to achieve their purposes."
Boymatov says that while the PMU claims they want to build a democratic state, when they come and shout "Allah Akbar," that indicates that they have a different idea about an Islamic state -- you have to look at what they do and not what they say in their program, he adds.
I think Boymatov is brave to raise these issues in not only the leftist political climate he must find himself in Europe, but in an emigre milieu where the tendency might be to say nothing -- especially when someone has been assaulted, likely with the involvement of the Uzbek SNB. But he is worried enough to be frank in his response to uznews.net, and charges PMU members with demanding that secular civil society activists "stand on a path of righteousness" or they will not cooperate with them.
Boymatov also speaks of the "Islamization" of the Uzbek emigre community. Is that going too far? Few follow this closely or critically. He believes that the PMU's invitation to IMU members to join their group was irresponsible, given that the IMU is on the list of terrorists, and was essentially broken up in 2001.
On the whole, all these statements and actions and this latest chanting of "Allah Akbar" in the center of the Swedish capital, at the Reichstat of Sweden (the parliament) in Boymatov's opinion indicates the appearance of an Uzbek Islamic opposition in Europe awaiting its hour to return to Uzbekistan.
Again, I don't know if this is accurate because we'd need more reports. It's troubling, but in and of itself, crying "Allah Akbar" doesn't have to mean that a group is ready to commit violence or terrorism or trying to impose a caliphate. Even so, it's out there... If I were to stand at a demonstration crying "Jesus, Mary and Joseph!" would you worry that I was in Opus Dei or something?
Boymatov then concludes, when asked by uznews.net, that he isn't for an Islamic Party appearing in Uzbekistan. Of course, this is where liberals always get hoisted by their own petard. Either they concede the right to association even for Islamists who might end it forever for everyone else, or risk denying it on those grounds and then being called out as illiberals.
I'm for facing it squarely and saying that you need to permit Islamic Parties and call on them not to deny any other parties their right to existence, too.
