When Did 'Extremist' Become a Catch All Label?

Introduction

In post-independence Uzbekistan, the word extremist gradually expanded from describing people involved in or supporting violent militancy to becoming a much broader political and legal label. Genuine security threats did exist. Armed groups carried out bombings, assassinations and cross-border attacks during the late 1990s and early 2000s, giving the government legitimate reasons to strengthen counter-terrorism measures. However, human rights organisations, religious freedom monitors and later researchers argue that the state increasingly blurred the distinction between violent organisations, peaceful independent religious practice and political dissent. As a result, accusations of “extremism” or being a “Wahhabi” often became tools for controlling religious life rather than narrowly identifying people involved in violence.[Human Rights Watch]hrw.orgreligious persecution uzbekistanHuman Rights WatchCreating Enemies of the State: Religious Persecution in Uzbekistan | HRWMarch 29, 2004…Published: March 29, 2004

This mattered because once these labels lost their precise meaning, they could justify arrests, censorship, surveillance and long prison sentences even where evidence of violent activity was weak or absent. The controversy is therefore not whether Uzbekistan faced real militant threats—it clearly did—but whether the state’s use of extremist language became so broad that it undermined the distinction between security policy and political repression.

When did “extremist” become a catch-all label?

How “Wahhabi” lost its precise meaning

Outside Central Asia, Wahhabi normally refers to a particular reformist current within Sunni Islam associated historically with Arabia. In Uzbekistan during the Karimov era, however, the term acquired a much looser political meaning.

Human Rights Watch and the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) have documented that officials applied the label to a remarkably diverse range of people, including:

This expansion created a significant ambiguity. A word that originally described one religious tradition became an official shorthand for almost any form of unsanctioned Islamic activity. Researchers therefore caution against assuming that every person labelled a “Wahhabi” in Uzbek official documents actually belonged to that theological movement.

From real attacks to wider suspicion

The broadening of extremist terminology cannot be understood without recognising the genuine violence that preceded it.

During the late 1990s Uzbekistan experienced serious security crises, including bombings in Tashkent in 1999, incursions by the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), and later attacks linked to militant Islamist networks. These events convinced many officials that underground religious organisations posed an existential threat to the state.

After these attacks, however, many observers argue that suspicion spread well beyond those responsible for violence. Rather than distinguishing between armed militants and peaceful independent believers, security agencies increasingly treated unofficial religious activity itself as evidence of possible extremism. Human Rights Watch describes a pattern in which ordinary worshippers, relatives, students of independent clerics and occasional mosque attendees could all fall under investigation because of their perceived associations rather than demonstrated criminal acts.[Human Rights Watch]hrw.orgOpen source on hrw.org.

Government policy also tightened control over:[hrw.org]hrw.org“Bullets Were Falling Like Rain”: The Andijan Massacre,“Bullets Were Falling Like Rain”: The Andijan Massacre,

In official rhetoric these measures were presented as preventing terrorism. Critics argued that they instead criminalised forms of peaceful religious expression that fell outside government supervision.

Evidence, propaganda and disputed hidden networks

One reason the period remains controversial is that evidence varied greatly between different cases.

There is little dispute that organisations such as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan engaged in armed violence. By contrast, the evidence surrounding many other alleged extremist networks proved much more contentious.

For example, organisations such as Hizb ut-Tahrir promoted the establishment of an Islamic political order but publicly rejected the use of violence in Uzbekistan. The government nevertheless treated membership as extremist and prosecuted thousands of alleged supporters. Human Rights Watch concluded that the authorities frequently failed to produce credible evidence connecting many defendants to violent acts, relying instead on possession of literature, religious association or alleged organisational membership.[Human Rights Watch]hrw.orgOpen source on hrw.org.

The same pattern appeared in accusations involving loosely defined underground groups whose structure, membership and operational capacity often remained difficult for outside researchers to verify independently.

Because independent journalism was heavily restricted and court proceedings lacked transparency, separating genuine clandestine organisations from exaggerated official narratives became extremely difficult. Historians therefore stress that each alleged network requires separate examination rather than assuming every government accusation reflected either complete truth or complete fabrication.

The Akromiya controversy

Few examples illustrate this problem more clearly than Akromiya.

Following the 2005 events in Andijan, the government portrayed Akromiya as a dangerous extremist organisation responsible for organising an armed uprising. Independent investigations, however, reached more cautious conclusions.

Many scholars and human rights organisations found evidence that a circle of local businessmen had been prosecuted for alleged membership in a religious movement whose structure and ideology remained poorly defined. While armed violence certainly occurred during the Andijan crisis, considerable disagreement remains over whether Akromiya existed as the coherent nationwide extremist conspiracy described by official accounts or whether the label was substantially expanded after the fact to explain wider unrest.[Human Rights Watch]hrw.orgOpen source on hrw.org.

The dispute demonstrates how difficult it became to separate:

Why broad labels proved so powerful

Broad extremist terminology gave security agencies considerable flexibility.

Instead of proving participation in a violent conspiracy, investigators could often rely on combinations of indirect indicators, including:

Human rights organisations argued that this encouraged guilt by association. Once a person entered an investigation as a suspected extremist, relatives, friends and fellow worshippers sometimes became subjects of scrutiny as well. The resulting atmosphere discouraged independent religious discussion and strengthened state control over Islamic institutions.

Changing policies after Karimov

Following Islam Karimov’s death in 2016, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev introduced reforms that eased some of the harshest practices.

International monitors have acknowledged improvements including:

At the same time, organisations such as USCIRF argue that important elements of the earlier legal framework remain in place. Authorities continue to regulate religious education, restrict certain religious literature and prosecute some forms of religious activity under laws concerning extremism. Recent assessments therefore describe continuity as well as reform, suggesting that while the language of repression has softened, broad official authority over religious life has not disappeared.[USCIRF]uscirf.govReligious Freedom Conditions in Uzbekistan | USCIRFMay 4, 2026…Published: May 4, 2026

Why the language still matters

The history of extremist labels in Uzbekistan illustrates a wider problem found in many countries confronting terrorism. Security agencies require legal tools to respond to genuine violent threats, but those tools become controversial when definitions expand beyond people who advocate or commit violence.

In Uzbekistan, the words “Wahhabi” and “extremist” gradually evolved from relatively specific descriptions into flexible administrative categories that could encompass peaceful religious practice, unofficial education and political suspicion alongside genuine militancy. Historians and human rights researchers therefore argue that understanding this period requires holding two realities together: Uzbekistan did face authentic extremist violence, yet the state’s response frequently extended suspicion far beyond those directly involved, making the language of counter-terrorism an important instrument of political and religious control.[hrw.org]hrw.orgOpen source on hrw.org.

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Endnotes

1. Source: uscirf.gov
Title: Report on Uzbekistan’s Religious and Political Prisoners | USCIRF
Link:https://www.uscirf.gov/publication/report-uzbekistans-religious-and-political-prisoners

2. Source: uscirf.gov
Title: releases report religious freedom uzbekistan
Link:https://www.uscirf.gov/release-statements/uscirf-releases-report-religious-freedom-uzbekistan

Published: September 2, 2022

3. Source: uscirf.gov
Title: Uzbekistan Country Update | USCIRF
Link:https://www.uscirf.gov/resources/uzbekistan-country-update

4. Source: uscirf.gov
Link:https://www.uscirf.gov/countries/uzbekistan

Published: May 4, 2026

5. Source: uscirf.gov
Link:https://www.uscirf.gov/news-room/releases-statements/uscirf-releases-report-highlighting-uzbekistans-religious-and

6. Source: 2009-2017.state.gov
Link:https://2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/irf/2003/24443.htm

7. Source: hrw.org
Title: religious persecution uzbekistan
Link:https://www.hrw.org/report/2004/03/29/creating-enemies-state/religious-persecution-uzbekistan

Published: March 29, 2004

8. Source: hrw.org
Link:https://www.hrw.org/report/2014/09/25/until-very-end/politically-motivated-imprisonment-uzbekistan

9. Source: refworld.org
Link:https://www.refworld.org/reference/annualreport/uscirf/2012/85521

10. Source: hrw.org
Title: Uzbekistan: Authoritarian President Karimov Reported Dead | Human Rights Watch
Link:https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/09/02/uzbekistan-authoritarian-president-karimov-reported-dead

11. Source: refworld.org
Link:https://www.refworld.org/reference/annualreport/uscirf/2013/93764

12. Source: hrw.org
Title: uzbekistan rewrites story andijan massacre
Link:https://www.hrw.org/report/2005/09/18/burying-truth/uzbekistan-rewrites-story-andijan-massacre

13. Source: hrw.org
Title: “Bullets Were Falling Like Rain”: The Andijan Massacre,
Link:https://www.hrw.org/report/2005/06/06/bullets-were-falling-rain/andijan-massacre-may

14. Source: hrw.org
Title: Background on the Campaign of Religious Persecution
Link:https://www.hrw.org/legacy/backgrounder/eca/uzbek-aug/persecution.htm

15. Source: hrw.org
Link:https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2025/country-chapters/uzbekistan

16. Source: hrw.org
Link:https://www.hrw.org/reports/2004/uzbekistan0304/4.htm

17. Source: hrw.org
Link:https://www.hrw.org/reports/2004/uzbekistan0304/2.htm

Additional References

18. Source: youtube.com
Title: Uzbek leader Karimov says Andijan uprising was planned abroad
Link:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUYy1QTFzW0

19. Source: ecoi.net
Link:https://www.ecoi.net/en/document/2136279.html

Published: February 4, 2026

20. Source: youtube.com
Title: The Terrible Aftermath of the Andijan Massacre
Link:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thdWPvxMyyk

21. Source: youtube.com
Link:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0NRpPLqKOA

22. Source: intl-crisis-group.org
Link:https://www.intl-crisis-group.org/projects/showreport_reportid_245.html

23. Source: youtube.com
Title: President Karimov visits, protests, HRW comment
Link:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEjMDYeELq4

24. Source: youtube.com
Title: Uzbekistan: Decade of Impunity for Massacre
Link:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1RNLAYEkQI

25. Source: refworld.org
Link:https://www.refworld.org/reference/annualreport/uscirf/2010/en/14599

26. Source: refworld.org
Link:https://www.refworld.org/reference/annualreport/uscirf/2014/en/99073

27. Source: intl-crisis-group.org
Title: Crisisweb: the International Crisis Group’s on-line system
Link:https://www.intl-crisis-group.org/projects/showreport_reportid_538.html