Russia To Expel 300 Tajik Migrant Workers After Pilots’ Jailing

Russia expels Tajik migrants after pilot’s jailing 

Russia is preparing to expel around 300 Tajik migrants detained in recent days, reportedly in retaliation for the jailing of a Russian pilot by a court in Tajikistan

AFP

Russian Federal Migration Service (FMS) said almost 300 migrants from the impoverished Central Asian state were detained over the last several days for violations of Russian law and would now be deported.

The move comes after a court in Tajikistan this week jailed two pilots from Russia and Estonia for eight-and-a-half years on charges of smuggling contraband goods, a verdict that was angrily protested by Moscow.

The Interfax news agency quoted a source at the FMS as saying the crackdown on illegal migrants would continue at the weekend. Its spokeswoman Zalina Kornilova said 297 Tajik migrants had already been detained.

“The 297 citizens of Tajikistan, who according to the court’s decision are going to be deported from the Russian Federation, are in temporary holding centres. Just technical questions need to be solved,” she told Interfax.

The FMS denied that the crackdown was politically motivated but a foreign ministry source told the Kommersant daily that the deportations were part of an “asymmetric response” by Moscow in protest against the pilot’s jailing.

Rights activists complained that while Moscow needed to defend the rights of Russian pilot Vladimir Sadovnichy, mass deportations of economic migrants was an unjust measure.

“If this is Russia’s reaction to the pilots’ jailing then it’s ridiculous,” said veteran rights activist Svetlana Gannushkina who runs a support group for migrants.

“They are preparing to deport from our country innocent people who round the clock have been working to build the city,” she told Kommersant.

Tajikistan is the poorest country to emerge after the collapse of the Soviet Union with a per capita Gross National Income of just $800, according to the World Bank.

This has prompted massive migration especially to Moscow, where tens of thousands of Tajiks work on building sites and in communal services. Their remittances home provide crucial income for the Tajik economy.

According to the FMS, there are 700,000 Tajiks living officially in Russia, a tenth of the country’s population of just under 7 million.

Islamist kills 7, self in Kazakhstan

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan—A radical Islamist killed seven people, including five law enforcement officers, in a rampage Saturday in Kazakhstan’s southern city of Taraz, authorities said. The suspect blew himself up as officers moved in to arrest him.

The shootout and bombing is the latest in a recent string of Islamist-related attacks in Kazakhstan and will deepen worries of a mounting terrorist threat in the former Soviet Central Asian nation.

Kazakhstan has been largely untroubled by Islamist-related violence, but the past few months have seen an anomalous spike in attacks that authorities have tied to radical organizations.

The prosecutor general’s office said in a statement that the killings began in the morning when the suspect opened fire and killed two security service officers who were tailing him.

Authorities said the attacker, identified only as Kariyev, later attacked a weapons store, killing the owner and a customer. He then commandeered a vehicle and shot dead two police officers.

“As an attempt was made to disarm Kariyev, he blew himself up, which resulted in the death of police captain Baitasov, who led the platoon engaged in the capture,” the statement said.

Kazakhstan, a vast oil-rich and mainly Muslim nation of 17 million people along Russia’s southern border, has been all but untouched by Islamist violence since gaining independence in 1991, although the killing of two police officers in western Kazakhstan in June was linked by authorities to indigenous terrorist groups.

That prompted security operations in which two more police officers and nine suspected terrorists were killed.

Uzbekistan: Authorities Restrict Muslims’ Travel to Mecca, Religious Art

[SEE:  Tajik Muslims bristle over anti-fundamentalism efforts]

by Catherine A. Fitzpatrick

whl.travel

Kalyan Minaret, Bukhara, Uzbekistan

Just a few months ago, Uzbek authorities seemed to be easing up on Muslims in Uzbekistan. At the end of Ramadan; unlike past years, President Islam Karimov issued an unprecedented decree deeming Eid ul-Fitr, the day marking the conclusion of the month-long fast, as a national holiday, EurasiaNet reported. (It fell on August 31st this year).

The Uzbek dictator allowed religious celebrations to be organized and even ordered state media to provide “comprehensive and positive” coverage. Of course, all the festivities were under state control, as all religious activity is in Uzbekistan. The purpose seemed to get some imams to praise Karimov as providing stability and security — ostensibly by contrast with the countries of the Middle East/North Africa that were experiencing the “Arab Spring.” Even so, it seemed as if the parameters for religious belief in Uzbekistan might be expanding.

Yet when it came time for the faithful to depart for Mecca this year, the Uzbek government reverted to its long-standing practice of severely limiting the number of people allowed to travel.

According to Forum 18 News Service, the Oslo-based religious news organization, only 5,080 out of a potential quota of about 28,000 set by Saudi Arabia for Uzbekistan were allowed to travel to Mecca for the hajj:

As before, an “unwritten instruction” banned would-be pilgrims under the age of 45, officials of a local mahalla committee in Tashkent told Forum 18. Pilgrims faced official screening, while secret police officers reportedly accompany the pilgrims. An Imam outside Tashkent, who did not wish to be named for fear of state reprisals, complained that “unofficial payments” more than doubled the cost of the hajj. “The number of applicants would be much, much higher if the cost was not so high,” he lamented to Forum 18.

About as many pilgrims traveled from Kyrgyzstan as from Uzbekistan, although it is more than five times more populous and 90 percent of its 26 million people consider themselves Muslims.

In another troublesome sign of increasing government control of Islam, the Uzbek national security service (SNB) recently issued a strict warning to the country’s leading artists against using religious themes in their work, the independent news site uznews.net reported.

At a meeting at the Tashkent Academy Theater, an SNB representative told leading theater and film professionals, writers, painters and musicians that the use of any kind of religious theme in their works was strictly forbidden. The impetus for the warning appeared to be the recent popularity of a film by a young Uzbek actor and director Farroukh Saipov, who was arrested and charged with belonging to a banned religious organization.

Another Ammo Dump Explosion–This One In Tehran, Iran

[The latest in a continuing series of ammo dump explosions, Cyprus, Turkmenistan and two in Russia (SEE:  Third Soviet-Era Ammo Dump Explosion In Six Weeks, This One In Turkmenistan).  It is sure a great way for someone to get attention, or perhaps to make a point of some kind.]

 

 

Blast in Ammo Cache Rocks Suburbs of Tehran

TEHRAN (FNA)- An Explosion in a military base near the city of Shahryar in the vicinity of Tehran shook the western parts of the Iranian capital on Saturday.

The blast took place in the cache of ammunitions of a military base in the village of Bidgoneh, in the vicinity of Malard in the Northern Alborz province close to the Iranian capital.

There are yet no reports on the number of casualties or damage to properties by the blast.

Representative of Shahryar at the Iranian parliament Hossein Garrousi said twin blasts shook the cities in the nearby areas.

He said a crisis committee has been set up to investigate the incident.

Several other members of the parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission confirmed the report on the blast in Bidgoneh, saying that it took place at an Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) base.

Hafiz Gul Bahadur Threatens Pakistan Govt Over Army Attacks In N. Waziristan

Hafiz Gul Bahadur threatens Pakistan govt

Reuters

Hafiz Gul Bahadur, believed to have thousands of fighters, reached a peace agreement with the Pakistani government in 2007. – File Photo

MIRAMSHAH: The most powerful militant leader in Pakistan’s North Waziristan border region has threatened to tear up a peace accord and turn his fighters against the Islamabad government.

Hafiz Gul Bahadur has an unofficial non-aggression pact with the military.

Pakistan can’t afford new militant enemies. The army’s hands are full with the Tehrik-e-Taliban (TTP), or Taliban Movement of Pakistan, blamed for many of the suicide bombings across the South Asian country.

Bahadur is known to have links with notorious militant groups in tribal North Waziristan, including the Haqqani network.

Bahadur criticised Pakistani leaders for allowing the United States to conduct drone missile strikes in North Waziristan and said the council of militant groups he heads would no longer hold talks with the government.

“We have been showing patience because of problems being faced by common people but now the government has also resorted to repression on our common people at the behest of foreigners,” Bahadur, who heads a Pakistani Taliban faction, said in a statement distributed in North Waziristan.

He accused the government of firing mortar bombs and cannons on civilians and demolishing a hospital and other buildings in North Waziristan. Army officials were not immediately available for comment.

Local military officials said “terrorists” had used public buildings to launch rocket attacks at military checkpoints.

“We are disbanding the jirga (council) set up for talks with the government. If the government resorts to any repressive act in the future then it will also be very difficult for us to show patience,” said Bahadur.

Bahadur, believed to have thousands of fighters, reached a peace agreement with the Pakistani government in 2007. But it has been strained lately.

Two clerics who are leaders of the committee that overseas the pact, Maulana Gul Ramazan and Hafiz Noorullah Shah, suggested the army had violated the deal.

Deconstructing Imran Khan’s Taliban narrative — I

Farhat Taj

Imran Khan is fabricating stories, or at least distorting facts, whereby he minuses the indigenous tribal resistance to the Taliban in his zeal for painting the Taliban as Pakhtun nationalists

Imran Khan, chief of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), speaks a lot about the war on terror and the role of Pakhtun tribes on both sides of the Durand Line in this war. On the internet, for example, there are numerous YouTube clips in which he elaborates his point of view. I have randomly selected one of the clips to deconstruct his argument, narrative and discourse, which are all misleading, marred by factual errors or perhaps wilful lies, and anti-people. Also, this deconstruction is important because Imran Khan’s views are an extension of the stereotypes about the Pakhtun tribes constructed, prompted and propagated by the British colonial and Pakistani establishment. This also includes the stereotypes that dehumanise the tribal people. Due to widespread illiteracy, the Pakhtun could not deconstruct the stereotypes. Rich and educated Pakhtuns, a few exceptions apart, never took upon themselves the moral responsibility to question the narrative and discourse by the ‘others’. The Pakhtun nationalist political parties never developed, not that they could not, but they did not due to a lack of foresightedness, the organisational capacity to have functioning think tanks in place to interact with the intelligentsia and the media around the world to disseminate information and question any misleading ideas about society that they — not the PTI with youth support base in Punjab — truly represent, especially in terms of belongingness to the indigenous soil, culture, history and traditions.

This is the YouTube clip from which I take Imran Khan’s narrative, discourse and argument regarding the Pakhtun and the war on terror: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rr-IFLJn00A (title: ‘Imran Khan explains ‘War of Terror’ and ‘Pakistani Taliban’).

In summary, Khan says this: “You can win a war against terrorism if you win hearts and minds of the people among whom the terrorists operate. You can win the war when the people consider them terrorists. You can never win the war when the people consider them freedom fighters. The Taliban are the popular Pakhtun freedom fighters. Upon the US’s behest, the Pakistan Army is killing its own people with F-16s and gunship helicopters. The bombs cannot differentiate between terrorists and innocent civilians. Usually the terrorists are too clever to be caught by the bombs, including bombs from the US drones. So they get away with the bombing, but innocent people are killed. Consequently, there is a popular backlash. In lieu of the US money, the Pakistan Army entered Waziristan in 2004 to catch 800 al Qaeda men. This ended causing collateral damage, including large scale human displacement. This was reciprocated by the tribal society by a backlash in the form of multiple suicide attacks on the state institutions and society in Pakistan, including attacks on the Pakistan Army. The Pakistan Army has no will to fight its own people. Soldiers of the army began to surrender in droves to a handful of the Taliban. The army was forced to negotiate peace with the Taliban. All political parties in the ruling alliance of Pakistan, including the Pakhtun nationalist ANP, want negotiated peace settlement with the Taliban. But the US government has a one-window operation with President Asif Ali Zardari, before they had the same with President Musharraf, whereby the Americans put pressure to send the Pakistan Army to the tribal areas to fight against our own people. What is happening in FATA is not religious extremism. It is radicalisation. People whose children are dying in the war of, not on, terror, how are they not going to be radicalised. Unless the US and NATO forces withdraw from Afghanistan, there is no chance of peace in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The reason is very simple. The Pakhtun have successfully resisted against the conquerors of the world, including Alexander the Great, the Mongolians, the Mughals, the British and the Russian. The Pakhtun tribes fight against each other but whenever an invader comes, they are all together. This time they are united against the US and NATO forces. What you see now is not the Taliban or al Qaeda. It is Pakhtun nationalism.”

It is factually wrong that the Pakistan Army entered Waziristan in 2004. The army had already entered South Waziristan in 2002 when it conducted a fake military operation near Azam Warsak, ostensibly against the al Qaeda militants and al Qaeda-led Taliban. According to the local people, the Taliban were tipped off by the army officers before the operation to vacate the area, which they did, but nevertheless the operation was conducted. Actually the operation was to humiliate and discredit the tribal leaders who were not taken into confidence before the operation. All those widely respectable tribal leaders were anti-Taliban, most of whom were killed one after the other in mysterious targeted killings from 2003 onwards. This operation and the later operations and the so-called peace deals with the Taliban were meant to tear apart the tribal socio-political order led by the tribal leaders and replace it with a Taliban order so as to provide safe havens to al Qaeda and al Qaeda-led Taliban for cross-borders attacks on the US and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

Within days and weeks of the UN-mandated US attack on al Qaeda and Taliban positions in Afghanistan, the militants came to South Waziristan, where the well-known cleric Maulana Noor Muhammad, famous in Waziristan for his deep longstanding links with the military establishment of Pakistan, was announcing in mosques that all Pakhtuns must stand up to welcome and protect their great guest, Osama bin Laden. This immediately prompted voices of dissent from within Waziristan, most of which were silenced through targeted killings and the remaining silenced through fear of targeted killings. Who in South Waziristan can forget Farooq Yargul Khel, a widely respected tribal leader in Wana, who in response to Maulana Noor Muhammad’s call for hospitality to Osama bin Laden, publicly announced that “Osama or his dad, as long as I am alive no militants can enter Wana bazaar.” Indeed, as long as he lived no militants could dare to enter Wana bazaar. Farooq Yargul Khel was the first anti-Taliban tribal leader in FATA who was target killed in 2003.

The point that I wish to make is that Imran Khan is fabricating stories, or at least distorting facts, whereby he minuses the indigenous tribal resistance to the Taliban in his zeal for painting the Taliban as Pakhtun nationalists. His ideas are uncritically accepted by his urban supporters who have no clue about how FATA was ‘won’ by the Taliban. Imran Khan may win the next elections with the support of the military establishment whose strategic agenda he is religiously promoting, but he must remember that — as told to me by several tribesmen across FATA — ‘tribal memory dies very hard’. This implies that the tribal people will never forget what al Qaeda and the Taliban did to them. Imran Khan must remember how he might go down in the tribal memory: standing with the assassins of those sons of the tribal soil who gave their lives in resistance to the Taliban and al Qaeda.

(To be continued)

The writer is the author of Taliban and Anti-Taliban

Hyperviolent drug cartel decaptiates members of internet chat rooms

Moderator for popular chat site was found tortured, decapitated

BY BERENICE GARCIA
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Eduardo Verdugo/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Federal police officers stand on guard during the presentation to the press of suspect Edgar Huerta Montiel, 22, aka “El Wache”, an alleged member of the Mexican Zetas drug cartel in Mexico City, Friday, June 17, 2011. According to police, Huerta was arrested Thursday during an operation in the Mexican state of Zacatecas. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)

A moderator for a popular Mexican site was found tortured and decapitated Wednesday making him the fourth victim in Nuevo Laredo since September killed for reporting on drug cartels through social media.

The man’s body was dumped in the Mexican border town after blogging about the Zetas drug cartel, according to the Houston Chronicle.

“This happened to me because I didn’t understand I shouldn’t post things on social networks,” read a note reportedly left with the body. The note identified the man by the username “Rascatripas” or “Belly Scratcher” but authorities have yet to publicly identify the man.

The man moderated Nuevo Laredo En Vivo, an online chat room where anonymous users post about drug violence.

In September, a man and a woman were murdered and hung from a pedestrian overpass with a message from the Zetas threatening bloggers.

Later that month, a female blogger was beheaded and left next to a Christopher Columbus statue, the same place the most recent body was found. A message also signed by the Zetas said she was killed because of her posts on social networking sites.

Despite the cartel’s warnings, one blogger remains dedicated to reporting about cartel activity and helping citizens stay safe.

“These deaths will not be in vain…they cannot kill us all,” blogger Oscar Villanueva told MSNBC

Villanueva writes for the Boderland Beat, a site that reports on the war between the Mexican drug cartels, and he plans to create a Twitter manifesto, calling those in his Twitter circle to unite and continue reporting on the cartels.

Sites like the Boderland Beat have become the primary source for updates on drug violence since newspapers have censored their coverage of drug war activity for fear of cartel retaliation. Now that bloggers are under attack, those who contribute to these sites insist on taking precautions.

A message on the En Vivo chat room, urged people to stay safe.

“Because of recent events in the city, and knowing that it is dominated by those who shouldn’t, and now that we can’t trust the police because those in the highest offices are also involved in the mafia, we have to start taking some measures of security to avoid being victims in this crime.”

Tajik Muslims bristle over anti-fundamentalism efforts

By Rafael Ignatov and Nurhan Kocaoglu — Special to The Washington Times

DUSHANBE, Tajikstan — Tajikistan’s government is aiming to combat Islamic fundamentalism in an effort that many Tajiks say is counterproductive and interferes with their religious lives.

The government’s effort includes banning children from praying in mosques, establishing a strict dress code for Muslim pilgrims and building a giant mosque in the capital, Dushanbe.

“Tajiks who want to attend mosque with their children and live according their beliefs in an open manner will be pushed toward extremist groups,” said Hoji Akbar Turajonzoda, a Tajik cleric and former deputy prime minister.

About 90 percent of Tajikistan’s 7.6 million people are Muslim.

Earlier this year, President Emomali Rakhmon announced the need for tough measures to stop the spread of Islamic extremism in the country, which shares an 850-mile-long border with Afghanistan.

A law introduced in August that forbids Muslims under the age of 18 from attending Friday prayers has angered many.

“The law is a shame for our country,” Mr. Turajonzoda said. “What kind of a state violates the fundamental right of a citizen to go to a mosque or to a church with their children?”

Authorities appear reluctant to enforce the law. Last Friday, two police officers stood watching as a group of teenagers made their way to theCentral Dushanbe Mosque for prayers.

“Even criminals are able to go to mosque. Everybody knows that Allah doesn’t ban anyone from going. and Allah’s laws are stronger than laws of our president,” said 12-year-old Makhmud, one of the boys heading to the mosque.

Mr. Rakhmon has been president since 1992. The first five years of his rule were marred by a civil war that claimed 50,000 lives as his government fought an Islamist opposition.

According to a high-ranking source in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, police have been instructed not to prevent teenagers from going to mosques.

“Authorities are worried about a popular revolt,” said the official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “Frankly, even policemen do not support this law, so it is not enforced at the moment.”

Observers say that fear of unrest among citizens who believe that Islam is under attack from the state might be one reason why the governmentis building a 150,000-capacity mosque in Dushanbe.

The mosque will hold 150,000 worshippers when completed

Scheduled for completion in 2014, it will be the largest mosque in Central Asia.

“The construction of a mosque is a godly act but this particular mosque is being constructed with an ulterior motive,” Turajonzoda said. “When criticized for cracking down on believers, it gives the authorities a free pass – now the government can point to the giant mosque and show that it supports religious freedom.

“But small groups still don’t have the right to construct a mosque themselves,” he said.

During the past year, the government has closed mosques around the country that were not operating under state control.

“The mosque will make it easier for the authorities to monitor and control what is preached in Dushanbe,” said Tajik analyst Alexander Sodiqov. “After all, one large mosque is easier to control than 20 smaller ones.”

Others see the new mosque as a diversion from more pressing social issues.

“Building a mosque is good because people will not pray on the streets near mosques as they do now,” said Vali Yusupov, 54, a Dushanbe construction worker who said he has seen a recent increase in mosque attendance.

“On the other hand, our city has more urgent needs, like there not being enough schools or hospitals – with 43 students in my grandson’s classroom, schools in general are overcrowded.”

The government also has produced a standardized curriculum for Islamic religious schools and a uniform that the country’s 5,500 pilgrims to Mecca were compelled to wear for the first time this year.

“Friends that are going this year got the new uniform. It’s just a dark blue waistcoat with national Tajik emblem and a note stating ‘Tajikistan, Hajj 2011,’ ” said Riskullo Aslamov, 65, a driver and resident of Rudaki district, 10 miles north of Dushanbe. “Tajiks are simple people. If they were told to wear something, they do it.”

The uniform costs $50, adding an extra cost to the rising expenses that Tajiks pay to government organizers to undertake the pilgrimage, called the Hajj.

This year, the trip cost $3,348, up by almost $200 from 2010. And that doesn’t include the cost of bribes that many claim are necessary to ensure a place on the Hajj. The average annual wage in Tajikistan is $820.

“When I first went in 1996, the [government] did not intervene in our matters and it was three times cheaper,” said Aslamov, who made a second pilgrimage in 2010.

“Now you have to go with an application to the committee two or three years before you go, and if you don’t want to be ‘lost’ from the list of people who wish to make Hajj, you better ‘reward’ necessary people.”