Amid reforms, Muslims still under fire in Fergana Valley

First came the kidnapping: Muhamadkhon Najmiddinov was walking home after prayers at a local mosque in Uzbekistan a few months ago, when men jumped out of a passing car, pulled a sack over his head, and bundled him off.

Second came the frame: The same day Mr. Najmiddinov disappeared, some 20 Uzbek security officers – many armed with automatic weapons – barged through the pale blue, wooden latticework gates of their prisoner's home. Family witnesses say they planted – and then "found" – 69 bullets that were later used as evidence in court, a common practice by police here to net suspected Islamic extremists.

Third came the sentence: 14 years behind bars for the father of five, and the resulting anger. "Our cases were falsified – God can see that," Najmiddinov told his mother, Mubarek Khon, after the sentence was read out. She says he was tortured during his interrogation – another routine practice here – and that she "could feel it in his voice." Najmiddinov is currently one of some 6,500 political and religious prisoners behind bars here.

"One day," the son told his mother, "there will be justice."

That day may not be too distant, if the degree of polarization between the secular, undemocratic regime of President Islam Karimov and the large number of Uzbeks who have been affected by the campaign against Islamic extremism is any gauge.

Uzbekistan has become a critical American ally for the Afghanistan war. While that link may be yielding some halting human rights progress here, critics say that longstanding Uzbek policies are in fact pushing many moderate Muslims into more extreme positions, and so thwarting US efforts to contain extremism across the region.

The crucible of that radicalism is the fertile Fergana Valley, ringed by jagged mountain ridges, and bordered by three former Soviet states – Uzbekistan, Kyrgystan, and Tajikistan. The Fergana Valley has a centuries-long tradition of independent Islamic thinking, the heart of which is is Namangan, hometown of two chief rebel leaders, and a focus of government moves against extremists.

Mr. Karimov took the oath of office with one hand on the Koran more than a decade ago. In the first years of independence from 70 years of rule by the atheist Soviet Union, reclaiming Islam was critical to building a new national identity.

But by 1998, wary of radical factions supported by fundamentalist regimes in two neighboring countries, Afghanistan and Tajikistan, Karimov resolved to clamp down on extremists, and declared that "such people must be shot in the head. If necessary, I will shoot them myself."

Support for outlawed groups like the militant Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and Hizb-ut Tahrir – which preaches for an Islamic state across Central Asia, and considers Sept. 11 "God's punish- ment to Americans" – stems as much from the regime's uncompromising tactics as from desperate economic conditions, analysts say.

Failure by the government to ease up – wearing a beard is a sure ticket to police harassment, as is praying five times a day – could have "bad results," says Muhamad Sadeq Muhamad Yusuf, the former Islamic Mufti of Uzbekistan, and an influential cleric in Central Asia. "Even if Muslims do not defy the government by force, deep inside they will be very angry and could join any group that appears."

Another problem is the scale of the crackdown. "If you have 7,000 people locked up, each one has 10 relatives and they are all against the state," says lawyer Karim Bahriyev. "The government should find the real reasons – poverty and unemployment – and should bring back a secular opposition, to fight the religious opposition."

Uzbek officials say they have had little choice but to crack down on groups that want to overthrow the government and have enjoyed cash from Saudi, Afghan, and Pakistani sources.

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