The role of Islam in the Uzbek politics

This thesis will investigate the 2005 uprising in Andijan as a case study to question whether it was a radical Islamist revolt against a secular regime, as labeled by the government some scholars argued, or a reaction to years of oppression and economic strife. The state blamed the protestors as being radicals. However, demonstrators asserted that they were the victims of the government. The first part will examine the religious policy of the government towards deemed radical groups and devout Muslims with the aim of describing a general picture of Islam in Uzbekistan since an understanding of governance and Islam will be helpful to analyze the Andijan event. The second part will criticize the Andijan uprising as a case study to demonstrate whether there is enough evidence to call the uprising as a radical Islamist attack. Therefore, I argue that the Andijan uprising, while having Islamist participants, referring to all protestors as radical Islamists in inaccurate. Many of those who demonstrated that day were local people who wanted to express their discontent with social and economic issues plaguing the country. Because of government paranoia against political Islam in the country, it served their interests to deem the protestors radical Islamist and terrorists, delegitimizing their concerns