Violent uprising breaks out in Uzbekistan
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-05-13 15:12

Thousands of people, many of them armed, took to the streets of an eastern Uzbek city on Friday, attacking a prison to protest the detention of prominent businessmen on charges of Islamic extremism, witnesses said.

Uzbek President Islam Karimov and other leaders immediately rushed to the city of Andijan amid reports that police in two districts were surrounded by armed protesters. The Russian news agency ITAR-Tass said nine people were killed in clashes and 34 wounded.

Tensions were also running high in the capital Tashkent, where a suicide bomber was shot and killed outside the Israeli Embassy on Friday morning.

The 23 defendants are charged with anti-constitutional activity and forming a criminal and extremist organization, but rights activists say the case is part of a broad government crackdown on religious dissent.

Valijon Atakhonjonov, the brother of one of the accused, said security forces fired shots in the air as thousands of people massed in front of the local administration building.

"The people have risen," he said by telephone.

Armed demonstrators went to a prison to free inmates overnight, Atakhonjonov said, but he could not confirm reports that the crowd had attacked an army garrison as well.

A government spokesman, also reached by telephone from Tashkent, said administrative buildings remained under government control.

On Wednesday several thousand people turned out to protest the allegations against the men, who have been on trial since early February on charges of being Islamic extremists. It was one of the largest anti-government demonstrations in the ex-Soviet republic.

Radical Islam was a bugaboo for the Soviet Union long before its collapse and was partly behind Moscow's decision to invade Afghanistan in the last days of 1979. The movement continues to bedevil Central Asian leaders, especially in neighboring Uzbekistan, where deep-rooted radical groups have been accused of a series of bombings and militant incursions.

Thousands of Muslims have been jailed in Uzbekistan over the past few years in a government campaign that critics say has affected many innocent believers and only inflamed anger against Karimov's harsh rule.

Uzbekistan emerged as a key U.S. ally after the Sept. 11 attacks, and hosts hundreds of U.S. troops.

The men, arrested in June, are accused of being members of the Akramia religious group and having contacts with the outlawed radical Islamic party Hizb-ut-Tahrir. Authorities accuse Hizb-ut-Tahrir of inspiring terror attacks in Uzbekistan last year that killed more than 50. The group, which claims to eschew violence, denied responsibility.

Akramia unites followers of jailed Uzbek Islamic dissident Akram Yuldashev, who was accused of calling for the overthrow of the predominantly Muslim country's secular government — an accusation he denies.

The group's members are considered the backbone of Andijan's small business community, giving employment to thousands of people in the impoverished and densely populated Fergana Valley.

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