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| Terror Networks |
| Responding to Hizb ut-Tahrir |
| 2003-07-07 |
| The International Crisis Group has a huge report on the Hezb ut-Tahrir, and even though I have only glanced over it so far, I'd say it is worth going to the site and downloading it. The emergence of Hizb ut-Tahrir is a significant but poorly understood political phenomena. ICG’s report contains much information from interviews with the movement’s members. Heavy-handed repression threatens to radicalise those members still further and sow the seeds of further Islamist extremism. It may have actually contributed to growth of the movement, particularly in Uzbekistan. Hizb ut-Tahrir claims to reject violence but has highly radical goals: the overthrow of governments throughout the Muslim world and their replacement by a single Islamic state or Caliphate. Too often, however, governments in Central Asia use it as an excuse for failing to carry out political and economic reforms. It is in the international community’s security interests to ensure that political opposition to unpopular regimes does not by default turn into a more militant group, with a more violent agenda than the present-day Hizb-ut-Tahrir. |
| Posted by:Paul Moloney |