Hizb ut-Tahrir ( Ḥizb at-Taḥrīr; Party of Liberation, often abbreviated as HT) is a pan-Islamist and fundamentalist group seeking to re-establish "the Islamic Khilafah (Caliphate)" as an Islamic "superstate" where Muslim-majority countries are unifiedAhmed & Stuart, Hizb Ut-Tahrir, 2009: p.3 and ruled under Islamic Shariah law, and which eventually expands globally to include non-Muslim states. In Central Asia, the party has expanded since the breakup of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s from a small group to "one of the most powerful organizations" operating in Central Asia. The region itself has been called "the primary battleground" for the party.Baran, Hizb ut-Tahrir: Islam's Political Insurgency, 2004: 43 Uzbekistan is "the hub" of Hizb ut-Tahrir's activities in Central Asia, while its "headquarters" is now reportedly in Kyrgyzstan.

Hizb ut-Tahrir is banned throughout Central Asia, and has been accused by the governments of Central Asia of terrorist activity or illegal importation of arms into their countries. According to globalsecurity.org, the group "is believed by some to clandestinely fund and provide logistical support to a wide range of terrorist operations in Central Asia, and elsewhere, although attacks may be carried out in the names of local groups." Human rights organizations and a former British Ambassador have accused Central Asian governments of torturing Hizb ut-Tahrir members and violating international law in their campaigns against the group.

Among the factors attributed to HT's success in the region are the religious and political "vacuum" of post-Soviet society there; the party's well organized structure; its use of local languages; the relatively comprehensive and easy to understand answers it provides to socio-economic challenges such as poverty, unemployment, corruption, drug addiction, prostitution and lack of education; its call for unifying the Central Asian states which appeals to traders and others frustrated by the severe effect on cross-border trade of the rigid and dysfunctional borders in the region.Baran, Hizb ut-Tahrir: Islam's Political Insurgency, 2004: 80Baran, Hizb ut-Tahrir: Islam's Political Insurgency, 2004: 78

Hizb ut-Tahrir was first started in Central Asia in Ferghana Valley in Uzbekistan and most HT members in the former Soviet Union are ethnic Uzbeks.

In addition to the five ex-Soviet states of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan, the adjacent republic of Afghanistan, which was never part of the Soviet Union, and Chinese province of Xinjiang, are (or at least traditionally were in the case of Xinjiang) Muslim majority areas of Central Asia.

History

Islam has been established in Central Asia for centuries, starting with the Battle of Talas in 751. However, during the 1920 and 30s the "cultural assault" of the Soviet Red Army and security forces, weakened religion to the point where "one can talk of a resulting `loss of the collective memory of Sufism in Central Asia`”.Baran, Hizb ut-Tahrir: Islam's Political Insurgency, 2004: 70 The Soviets banned Islamic education, Sufi texts, prayers and hajj pilgrimage, closed religious schools (where religious knowledge was transmitted). In the most populous country of the region, Uzbekistan, there were only 89 mosques in the entire country in Soviet times.

All madrassas and all institutions of secondary or higher Islamic learning closed in the late 1920s. Two Islamic institutes with a very distorted and shortened curriculum began again from 1952 on a tiny scale. Education in Arabic continued only in secret or (after a thorough period of government scrutiny) at the Oriental Institutes of Moscow, Leningrad and a few other places. As a result, the ulema diminished substantially; for example, in Bukhara, the number went down from 45,000 at the time of the Russian revolution to 8,000 in 1955.Baran, Hizb ut-Tahrir: Islam's Political Insurgency, 2004: 71

When the Soviet Union was dissolved in 1991, interest among the population in knowing more about Islam was great and religious institutions were freed to expand, but the interpretation of Islam that filled the religious vacuum was not the native Sufism but Islamist interpretations funded by outside petrodollars.

The party was established in the region in the early 1990, but its expansion "took off in earnest" in 1995, when a Jordanian named Salahuddin began disseminating HT literature among the ethnic Uzbek population of the Ferghana Valley, from where it spread.Baran, Hizb ut-Tahrir: Islam's Political Insurgency, 2004:77 HT has expanded from a small group to one of thousands of members and "by far the largest" radical Islamist movement in the area.

The movement found many recruits following the February 1999 bombings in Tashkent (where it was accused by the Ukbekistan government of participating in the destruction), and after 2001 when it benefited—particularly in Uzbekistan—from the decline of the other important radical Islamic group in Uzbekistan, the salafist jihadist group Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. As government repression drove HT members out of Ukbekistan they moved to Uzbek areas of other republics and spread the HT message. With time it has spread to among other ethnic groups in the rest of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan. By 2004, even ethnic Russians and Koreans were found among arrested HT members. Support for HT is growing among other sectors, teachers, military officers, politicians (especially those whose relatives have been arrested), and other members of the elite.

Structure/operations/size According to the Jamestown Foundation |Terrorism Monitor, in Central Asia HT targets for recruitment include "socially vulnerable people" such as unemployed, pensioners, students and single mothers; "representatives of local power structures", who can protect party cells from surveillance and prosecution; and "law enforcement personnel" who can "facilitate access to sensitive information".The Recruiting and Organizational Structure of Hizb ut-Tahrir |Jamestown Foundation |Terrorism Monitor |Volume: 2 Issue: 22 |November 17, 2004 | Evgenii Novikov

According to Zeyno Baran, HT is more active in rural areas. This is because the incidence of poverty and unemployment is higher, and family, clan ties, and other informal network ties are stronger than in the more anonymous cities, providing more access to potential recruits, and more safety since anyone rejecting HT's overtures are unlikely to report a family or clan member to the authorities.Baran, Hizb ut-Tahrir: Islam's Political Insurgency, 2004: 85 HT is also active among the commercial class (according to Baran), especially among those who are engaged in wholesale trading operations, and in prisons, which are among "the best" places to convert people to radical Islam. Relatives of the imprisoned, especially women, are particularly easy to recruit. Recruiting influential people within state institutions is critical for overthrowing the government, the third stage of HT's strategy.Baran, Hizb ut-Tahrir: Islam's Political Insurgency, 2004: 86 HT "is known to have successfully penetrated the Kazakhstani media, the Uzbekistani customs bureau, and the Kyrgyzstani parliament".48 Reuven Paz, “The University of Global Jihad”, in The Challenge of Hizb ut-Tahrir: Deciphering and Combating Radical Islamist Ideology, ed. Zeyno Baran (Washington, DC: The Nixon Center, 2004). In Kyrgyzstan, the National Security Service Chairman Imankulov publicly accused the Deputy Speaker of Parliament Zhogorku Kenesh and ombudsman Tursunbaj Bakir Uulu of being connected to Islamists, in 2002. According to Baran, Bakir Uulu "is known to protect HT".Baran, Hizb ut-Tahrir: Islam's Political Insurgency, 2004: 87

In its party work, HT begins by "approaching individuals most likely to embrace radical Islam, communicating and establishing links with them, and disseminating propaganda literature translated into local languages".Baran, Hizb ut-Tahrir: Islam's Political Insurgency, 2004: 84-5 Leaflets are convenient propaganda tools especially in regions where Internet access is limited or nonexistent, as they can be printed locally and distributed easily. In 2003 alone, Uzbekistani authorities shut down two underground printing houses and confiscated 144,757 leaflets containing appeals to overthrow the country's constitutional order. Also found were over 10,000 copies of HT's constitution, thousands of different issues of Al-Waie and two dozen copies of HT books by al-Nabhani and Zallum. The International Crisis Group reports that in 2004 the organization produced "videocassettes, tape recordings and CDs of leaders’ speeches and sermons.”International Crisis Group, “Radical Islam in Central Asia”, p. 22. The recruitment of HT members is based primarily on person-to-person communication. Each member is asked to bring in new recruits personally known to them from places of employment, schools or mosques. “Before an HT member gives a leaflet to a person (someone whom he most likely met at a mosque), the activist generally gets acquainted with the person and sits down to explain that HT is a political, not military, organization.” Anonymous U.S. counter-terrorism analyst, interview by Zeyno Baran, July 13, 2004.

Full HT members (known as khizbi) receive a second stage of education and training (in Central Asia this includes comparing the sociopolitical conditions in the republics of Central Asia with other Islamic countries by referring to the publications of the party), and the most promising new members are promoted to the post of Mushrif. Mushrif are trained to organize practical actions and provide training to rank and file members. At the beginning of the third stage of training the "most active, prolific and brilliant" new members — who have "proved their loyalty in real actions" — are promoted to the rank of Naquib. The Naquib manage the general party work at a district level as well as organizing training, propaganda work and the distribution of leaflets. Above the Naquib are the Musaid - the assistant to the head of the regional organization. Above that is the position of Mas’ul - the head of the regional organization who is subordinated to the Muta’amad - leader of Hizb ut-Tahrir in a Central Asian republic. A Muta’amad is responsible for maintaining and strengthening the national branch of the party according to "the unique social, economic and political circumstances" of that Republic. All Muta’amads of the different republics submit to one Amir.

"Rough estimates" of HT's strength in Central Asia range from "20,000 to 100,000 people" according to Karagiannis and McCauley. As of 2003, the International Crisis Group states that estimates of the party's strength throughout Central Asia "vary widely", but a "rough figure is probably 15-20,000". Emmanuel Karagiannis himself "estimates that there are around 30,000 members and many more sympathizers", based on his "extensive fieldwork in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan from September 2003 until February 2005".

HT has been called "without a doubt one of the most powerful organizations" operating in the region (according to Igor Rotar of the Jamestown Foundation). Although another source (the World Almanac of Islamism) describes its support as not "widespread ... anywhere in Central Asia" as of approximately 2013. International Crisis Group also states that the party's "influence should not be exaggerated – it has little public support in a region where there is limited appetite for political Islam", nonetheless it has become "by far the largest" radical Islamist movement in the area.

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