A letter from the Leader of Hizb ut-Tahrir in Uzbekistan

بِسْمِ اللّهِ الرَّحْمَنِ الرَّحِيمِ

Assalamu 'alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu.

I sent you part of the treatment that has been inflicted on us by the ruling authority in Uzbekistan; the prosecution, imprisonment and torture which amounts to death in many cases. Such treatment is not limited to us only in Hizb ut-Tahrir but includes all of the workers for the Islamic Call. The number of prisoners from Hizb ut-Tahrir alone in the prisons of Uzbekistan is approximately eight thousand, even though that party does not exert any acts of violence.

The oppression of this government was aggravated more this summer than throughout the year. At the beginning of this summer, all the new masools (leaders) who were appointed after the arrest of their predecessors have been arrested. A large number of our active shabab were also arrested. This happened in Tashkent, the capital, in the state of the Ferghana Valley, the state of Andijan and in other states of Uzbekistan.

Many of our shabab started to travel outside the country to work there to avoid the arrest. Nevertheless, the spies of the authority are watching and spying, even on those who travel abroad. In these days in the month of Ramadan the spies of the authority came to ask about who had traveled, and when they did not find them, they took their relatives and held them in their centers to know where their sons went. In addition, they threatened them that they will remain in detention until their sons come back. They treated them with cruelty and brutality, some of them even fainted and the older fell to the ground from fatigue.

The authority started to assign its employees in the water and gas departments; the members of the Shura Council being men and women of the locality who were assigned to spy to know where the families of prisoners get their expenditures, where they eat, wear, and how they live.

The prisoners who have completed their sentences; they blackmail them to leave the work with Hizb ut-Tahrir and start working with the authority, to spy on the party. Moreover, the one who refuses, they say to him: "You have not completed your treatment yet" and they increase his sentence to three additional years in prison. There are many of those who spent additional years and they did not release them, but they returned to blackmail them.

This is the ruling authority in Uzbekistan. We will not bow to its oppression and will continue working in the legitimate way (sharee way) to change it, we will be patient with Allah's help and with the assistance for our Muslim brothers in this country and in other Muslim countries, we will be patient until Allah judges between us, and Allah is the wise of the wises.


Your brother

The Masoul of Hizb ut-Tahrir in Uzbekistan


24th Ramadan 1431 AH
04/09/2010