Friday, 12 June 2009
A Tashkent regional court on criminal cases has sentenced twelve female activists of the Hizb ut-Tahrir organization to various terms of imprisonment, a source in the country's law enforcement authorities told Interfax on Thursday.
All convicts were indicted of encroaching on the constitutional system, creating banned religious extremist organizations, preparing and distributing materials posing a threat to public security, the source said.
According to the law enforcement authorities, the "female wing" of Hizb ut-Tahrir, an organization that is banned in the country, was set up in Tashkent in 2003, the source said. Two branches of the group were then formed, which operated in Tashkent and the Tashkent region. The group had to close its activities after the arrest of the leaders of the illegal religious organization.
"The inquest has found that Salima Zakirova and Feruza Rustamova, involved in the activities of the organization at the time, initiated their activity in January 2008," the source said.
They continued to create a system of small groups, which were unaware of each other's existence. They set up a special fund and organized fund raising. The representatives of the "female wing" of Hizb ut-Tahrir distributed extremist literature calling for the anti-constitutional change of the political system, the removal of the legally elected government and heads of local authorities from power, and the destruction of the united Uzbekistan.
The majority of the convicted women have their husbands, brothers or other relatives currently serving prison sentences for membership in this extremist religious movement.
