Osh/Brussels, 30 June 2003: The emergence of Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islami (The Party of Islamic Liberation) over the past five years in Central Asia has been one of the region’s most significant but also least understood political and social phenomena.

“The heavy-handed repression faced by Hizb ut-Tahrir members in Central Asia actually threatens to radicalise members still further and sow the seeds of further Islamist extremism”, said ICG’s Central Asia Project Director David Lewis. “It may have actually contributed to the growth of the movement, particularly in Uzbekistan”.

Hizb ut-Tahrir claims to reject violence as a form of political struggle but has highly radical goals: the overthrow of governments throughout the Muslim world and their replacement by a single Islamic state or Caliphate. In theory it also rejects terrorism, considering the killing of innocents to be against Islamic law. ICG finds some justification for violence in the movement’s literature, and reports admissions that Hizb ut-Tahrir has participated in a number of failed coup attempts in the Middle East. Hizb ut-Tahrir also has contacts with a number of groups much less scrupulous about the use of violence.

“But despite the allegations of governments, there is no proof of its involvement of terrorist activities in Central Asia or elsewhere”, said Robert Templer, ICG’s Asia Program Director. “Too often governments in the region use Hizb ut-Tahrir as an excuse for failing to carry out political and economic reform. And too often the international community has turned a blind eye to this repression. The U.S. in particular is in danger of damaging its reputation in the region by close association with Central Asian dictatorships”.

“It is in the security interests of the international community to ensure that political opposition to unpopular regimes does not by default turn into a more militant group, with a more violent and dangerous agenda than the present-day Hizb ut-Tahrir”, said David Lewis.