ERK PARTY TALKS WITH HIZB UT-TAHRIR LEADERS

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 TASHKENT 001888 SIPDIS SIPDIS DEPT FOR SCA/CEN, DRL, AND INR E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/30/2017 TAGS: PHUM KDEM KIRF KISL PGOV PINR RS TU UZ SUBJECT: ERK PARTY TALKS WITH HIZB UT-TAHRIR LEADERS REF: A. 05 TASHKENT 3304 ¶B. 98 TASHKENT 1116 Classified By: POLOFF R. FITZMAURICE FOR REASONS 1.4 (B, D). ¶1. (C) Summary: On October 26, poloff met with Erk political opposition party leader Atanazar Arif, who claimed that Erk was to hold a meeting in Istanbul on October 27 with leaders of Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT) and other religious extremist factions on coordinating their opposition to President Karimov. Arif also reported meeting with HT leaders in Moscow on two previous occasions recently. According to Arif, Erk has had some success convincing HT leaders that they should cooperate with the democratic opposition in their political struggle against President Karimov. While Arif's information is intriguing, we have no way to confirm it. Arif is the senior Erk representative in Uzbekistan. Erk leader Muhammed Solikh reportedly lives in exile in Germany, though some reports also have him residing in Norway or Sweden. End summary. RECENT MEETING IN ISTANBUL -------------- ¶2. (C) During a meeting with poloff on October 26, Erk political opposition party leader Atanazar Arif revealed that his party was to hold a meeting with leaders of Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT) and other Islamic extremist factions in Istanbul on October 27. The goal of the meeting was reportedly to further explore how the democratic opposition and religious extremists could coordinate their anti-Karimov activities. According to Arif, the meeting would be attended by Erk leader Mohammed Solikh, who resides in exile in Germany, and HT leaders from England. Arif, who did not attend, said that the meeting would not be publicized and that only a few people know about it. He asked poloff to keep the information confidential. ¶3. (C) According to Arif, one of the Wahhabist factions is to be represented by Imam Abidkhan Nazarov, who was granted politic asylum in Sweden in 2006. In the 1990s, Nazarov gained widespread popularity in Tashkent as a leader in the Islamic vigilante anti-crime effort. His followers were seen as conservative Muslims tied to Wahhabi teachings, but not as militant extremists (ref A). In 1998, Nazarov was believed to have been arrested by National Security Service (NSS) officers in Tashkent (ref B),and later appeared in Shymkent, Kazakhstan. In 2005, seven of his followers were sentenced to seven years' imprisonment by an Uzbek court on charges of Islamic extremism after being deported from Shymkent (Note: The Shymkent region has been an area of particular concern for Uzbek security services for many years. In addition to suspected religious extremists, they see the city as home to a sizable Chechen population. End Note.) Arif alleged that the arrests were carried out jointly by Uzbek and Kazakh Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) officials and that Nazarov was fortunate to escape capture. ¶4. (C) Arif acknowledged that the democratic opposition and religious extremists hold divergent views on the best way to confront President Karimov's regime. The religious extremists favor direct confrontation and spreading their views within Uzbekistan, while Erk prefers reaching out to the large number of Uzbek migrants in Kazakhstan and Russia, where the organization can operate more freely than in Uzbekistan. HT leaders admit that many of their members have been arrested in recent years, severely disrupting their operations, but they remain undeterred and will continue their struggle "till death." Arif noted that the activities of his organization within Uzbekistan are limited. Erk smuggles its newsletter into Uzbekistan from Kyrgyzstan, which is then surreptitiously distributed to its members across the country. TASHKENT 00001888 002 OF 004 TWO PREVIOUS MEETINGS IN RUSSIA -------------- ¶5. (C) Arif also reported meeting with HT leaders during two previous trips to Moscow in 2006 and 2007. On both occasions, he met with the same three leaders in three different locations in Moscow. The alleged HT leaders, all Uzbeks permanently residing in Russia, were relatively young and appeared to be well-educated. Arif did not learn the identity of his interlocutors, but said that they -- along with other leaders in Russia and Kazakhstan -- claimed to direct HT's operations within Uzbekistan itself. He said that the meetings were arranged by Erk activists residing in Russia. ¶6. (C) Arif said that he traveled to Moscow in October 2006 and April 2007. In October 2006, Arif visited Moscow via Turkey on his way back to Uzbekistan from an extended stay in North America, during which time he visited his sons in Canada and the U.S. Congress with Solikh. In April 2007, Arif stopped in Moscow on his way to visit his sons in Canada again. Arif believed that he was successful in disguising his travel to Moscow and thought that Uzbek intelligence was still unaware of the meetings. Arif has four sons with refugee status in Canada, three in Halifax and one in Calgary. FIRST ENCOUNTER WITH HT IN TASHKENT -------------- ¶7. (C) Arif said that Erk has been trying to reach out to HT and other extremist groups since at least 1993, when its registration ceased to be recognized by the government (Note: Erk was officially registered as a political party in 1990, and the group believes that its registration is still active as the government has never officially deregistered them. End Note.) For over a decade, though, the religious extremists demonstrated little interest in cooperating with Uzbekistan's democratic opposition and refused to meet with them. ¶8. (C) In early 2004, Arif said that he was approached at his home for the first time by a young man, who identified himself as an HT leader. The two then allegedly engaged in a two-hour debate about Islam and democracy. Arif did not learn his identify, but the young man appeared well-educated and said he received a religious education at a Saudi Arabian university. Arif said that the young man was later among 12 suspected HT members who reportedly disappeared in June 2004. Arif was shown a picture of him by his family after the disappearance. Arif added that Nazarov's son also vanished around the same time, which followed a string of alleged bombings by Islamic extremists in Tashkent and Bukhara. ¶9. (C) Arif said that he could not meet directly with HT leaders in Uzbekistan, but he maintains ties with religious leaders who have their own connections to HT and other extremist group members in Uzbekistan. He did not say who are those religious leaders, but offered to help poloff meet some of them in the future. WHY IS HIZB UT-TAHRIR WARMING UP TO DEMOCRACY? -------------- - ¶10. (C) According to Arif, HT leaders initially viewed democracy as "the enemy of Islam" and associated it solely with the United States and England. Arif reportedly informed them that democracy is a universal ideal that comes in many different forms and stressed that democracy was not anti-Islamic, but allowed all religions to compete equally for adherents. According to Arif, HT leaders are gradually being won over to the idea that it may be first necessary to establish democratic states in Central Asia and elsewhere TASHKENT 00001888 003 OF 004 before a worldwide Caliphate could be created, in much the same way as some communists believed that agrarian societies needed to first go through industrialization and a capitalist stage before they could achieve communism. ¶11. (C) Arif stressed to poloff that Erk, of course, did not support HT's goal of establishing a worldwide Caliphate, but saw the group nevertheless as useful allies in their struggle against Karimov's authoritarian regime. Through further interaction with the democratic opposition, Arif also seemed to believe that HT's hard-line ideology could be softened and made more amenable to democratic ideas (Comment: It is equally likely that HT views the democratic opposition as useful but temporary allies in their own battle against Karimov. End comment.) UZBEK HT MEMBERS REPORTEDLY ATTEND HT RALLY IN JAKARTA -------------- -------------- ¶12. (C) Arif also reported that Uzbek HT members have participated in other HT events around the world. He cited a HT rally that allegedly occurred in August at a stadium in Jakarta, Indonesia. According to him, the rally was attended by over 8,000 HT activists from around the world, including several from Uzbekistan. Arif did not know further details about the event, except that it was a legal event which allegedly occurred with the full knowledge of local authorities in Jakarta. ERK WILL NOT PARTICIPATE IN ELECTION, BUT SOLIKH STILL A CANDIDATE -------------- -------------- ¶13. (C) Arif said that Erk was boycotting the election, believing that it would be impossible to hold a free and fair election in the current political environment. However, Arif noted that Solikh would remain Erk's candidate for president in perpetuity, regardless of whether there are future elections or not. According to Arif, Solikh often travels from Germany to meet opposition figures in Turkey and Norway, where his son also currently resides (Note: Some reports place Solikh as residing in Norway or Sweden, not Germany. End note.) Solikh remains an Uzbek citizen, but lacks a valid passport. His main form of identification is a refugee status card. (Bio note: Solikh participated as a candidate in the 1991 presidential election and was briefly detained in 1992 before fleeing Uzbekistan. In 1999, he was sentenced by an Uzbek court in absentia to 15 years' imprisonment for allegedly organizing the 1999 bombings in Tashkent. End note.) ¶14. (C) Arif reported that on October 11, Erk sent President Karimov a letter listing three demands that the government: (a) cease its persecution of Erk activists and other opposition leaders, (b) recognize Erk's registration as a political party, and (c) allow Erk to freely participate in the December 2007 election. Unsurprisingly, Erk has yet to receive a response. COMMENT: A STRATEGIC ALLIANCE? NOT YET -------------- ¶15. (C) Despite Arif's claim that HT's leadership is warming up to the idea of democracy, we doubt that such ideological extremes will be able to form some sort of alliance in the near future. It remains intriguing that Erk and HT leaders are apparently talking to each other, but we doubt that this will have a serious impact on HT's ideology, which, despite its alleged adherence to non-violence, remains virulently anti-Semitic and anti-Western. HT is a global phenomenon, so it is unlikely that talks with a small, struggling Uzbek opposition party will have much impact on its worldwide tactics or strategy. Most likely, HT views Erk as useful, TASHKENT 00001888 004 OF 004 but temporary, strategic partners in its continuing campaign against President Karimov. It is also possible that talks between the two groups have been inspired by the formation of the "Other Russia" coalition, which was able to unite liberals, communists, and hard-line nationalists together in opposition to President Putin. Regardless, we are currently only hearing half the story, as we have no contact with anonymous HT leaders themselves in Uzbekistan. ¶16. (C) While Arif appeared sincere in his conversation with poloff and we do not suspect him of collaboration with Uzbekistan's security services, it is always possible that we are being deliberately provided disinformation intended to tarnish Uzbekistan's democratic opposition by drawing links between them and religious extremists. The information that Arif provided may be somewhat misleading, as according to the GOU Erk had contacts with religious extremists prior to 2004. For example, the GOU has long claimed that Solikh met with Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) leader Tahir Yuldashev in Istanbul in 1998. In light of the provocative nature of this news, the possibility of intentional disinformation by Arif, and other information provided by Arif (see septel on Erk's relationship with slain journalist Alisher Saipov),we will carefully evaluate any future communication with and information from Arif. NORLAND