We often read or hear about such cases, when refugees from Uzbekistan are abducted on the territories of neighboring countries, where they seek asylum. In recent years, the number of such cases has increased.

According to the materials of MirsobirKhamidkariev’s case, he is persecuted by the Uzbek authorities for participation in gatherings of the religious organization “Islom zhikhodchilari” banned in Uzbekistan, because of the seized business located in the center of Tashkent and for producing Nafs [Temptation], a movie banned for release in the country. For a long time, human rights defenders could not find out for which accusations Khamidkariev was wanted.

However, the subject of this story is a little bit different.

There is an interesting point in Mirsobir Khamidkariev’s case – when Russian lawyer Illarion Vasiliyev, who participated in Khamidkariev’s trial in Tashkent, asserted in November that the Uzbek refugee caught the eyes of the local security services and thenwas forced to flee the country fearing long imprisonment because of his participation in several gathering of fellow classmates –gyaps (Gyapstands for “conversation” in Uzbek.In fact, gyap is a traditional form of pastime of people in Uzbekistan, who have common interests. Gyap can be a gathering of both men and women, and in rare cases, people bring their family members to such gatherings – “Jarayon”).

“According to evidences, Mirsobir really participated in several gatheringsof friends (gyaps), said something about the Prophet and women wearing the hijab. He did not make any calls for violence against the government or joining any organization. This is what all the witnesses say,”said lawyer Illarion Vasiliyev.

“Jarayon” found out that there previously had been such cases in Uzbekistan,when young people who participated in gatherings of friends, gyaps, had been prosecuted later on.

One of such high-profile cases occurred in 2011 in Uchtepadistrict, Tashkent city: 15 classmates, all males, were arrested by the Uzbek enforcement structures. According to relatives of the arrested people, the young men boys participated in private gatherings–gyaps, where they cooked pilaf and had innocent talks. During the gathering, one of the classmates called others to do namaz and follow canons of Islam. After a while, all the men who attended the gyapwere arrested, only one of them, who talked about the religion, was forced to flee the country.

Here a question is raised – if the gathering of the classmates was privateand not attended by outsiders, how did the Uzbek security forces manage to find about what the young men talked about?

We managed to get an answer to this questionfrom Uzbek political scientist Kamoliddin Rabbimov residing in France. He told Jarayon that this is a very common practice in Uzbekistan and in most cases the Uzbek security services control private gatherings – gyaps, which faithful Muslims attend.

“In my home town Ishtikhon, Samarkand province, there was such a case in 2002, when about 15 people were imprisoned, all of them were young believers,” said Kamoliddin Rabbimov.

According to him, the Uzbek authorities fear growth of religiosity of the population; therefore the local intelligence agencies keep mainlypracticing Muslims under their surveillance, who do not promote any slogans dangerous to the authorities.

“All these are done not for the sake of combating terrorism or extremism, as this country’s authoritieslike to claim. Today, the National Security Services mainly watch ordinary Muslims, who are not necessarily members of “Hizb-ut-Tahrir” or Salafists. The intelligence agencies carefully monitor those, who simply followrules of the Koran and the Prophet Muhammad.

Sometimes they embed their peoplein such gatherings/gyaps, sometimes they simply monitor their phone conversations. After that they arrest and imprison one of the participants of the gathering, torture him to make him slander other participants of the gyap. As a result, lots of innocent people are arrested, who decided just to get together in a close circle, eat pilaf and talk about religion,” said political analyst Kamoliddin Rabbimov.

Timur RASULOV