Kyrgyzstan picks a fight with its most pious Muslims
There may be venal political factors at play here too, though. A religiously inspired political party is coming under mounting pressure
The authorities in Kyrgyzstan are picking a fight with the country’s most pious Muslims.
They are keen to stress that it is not Islam itself they have in their crosshairs, however.
Under proposed changes to the law put forward this week by the State Committee for Religious Affairs, it would not be permitted to use religious premises for political gatherings or distribute religious literature in public spaces without prior approval. Religious figures would be barred from running for local council elections. Religious groups will be prohibited from funding political parties. Teaching religious subjects would be confined to registered institutions, and any religious instruction outside these settings would lead to fines. Anybody engaging in proselytising will need to register for a government licence to do so legally.
The most contentious and potentially incendiary proposal, however, envisions a ban on wearing the niqab, a face-covering worn by some Muslim women, in government offices and public spaces.
As Kadyr Malikov, who advises President Sadyr Japarov on religious affairs, argued in remarks to journalists, the legislation was purportedly crafted to protect Muslims, not to harm them.
"There have been cases in which certain individuals and groups have used religious values as a cover and exploited believers to seize power. They use religious people as a tool. [These changes to the] law do not discriminate against those who believe in Islam. On the contrary, it protects them as much as possible," he was cited as saying by Sputnik news agency.
Proponents of the amendments to the Law on Freedom of Religion and Religious Organisations were immediately put on the back foot by the reaction to them on social media. Malikov complained, for example, that the proposed niqab ban was being grossly misrepresented on social media.
“It is necessary to understand that the ban does not apply to the hijab,” he said.
The confusion would indeed have been legitimate cause for alarm. The sight of women in Kyrgyzstan with their faces covered entirely is still rare. Hijabs, which cover only the hair and neck, have become ubiquitous in the past decade or so. Wearers of the hijab typically tend to be younger women.
Officials are being disingenuous over the roots of their objection to the niqab. The language in the draft bill links the suggested prohibition to concerns that clothing hiding the identity of a person makes it difficult for authorities to identify individuals. Fines of 20,000 soms (around $240) are envisioned for offenders. Nitpickers note that motorcycle helmets and surgical masks, of the type universally adopted during the COVID-19 pandemic, are not getting the same treatment.
The likelier explanation is that attempts to trim the sails of adherents of Islam operating outside the confines of the state-approved orthodoxy reflect deep, persisting anxieties about ever-larger swathes of the population turning their back on secular values and embracing radical forms of faith. For the most readily alarmed, it is only one step from there to outright civil conflict.
These worries are gleefully exacerbated by a welter of obscure Russia-based websites routinely hypothesising the work of a mysterious Western hand behind the ascendancy of what they term “political Islam.”
By way of evidence for this, one outlet recently pointed to an ongoing security services probe in Kyrgyzstan into the finances of the Iyman Nuru (Light of Faith) party, which won five seats in parliament at the 2021 elections. The claim is that a foundation linked to the party in 2014-15 received $5 million from the Turkish government to support religious education in Kyrgyzstan and then failed to properly account for how this money was used. Just join the dots, the outlet winks and nods.
To spell it out, the nonsensical implication of such tin foil-hat musings is that Ankara may be acting as a catspaw for Western secret services attempting to sow religious-political unrest in places like Kyrgyzstan.
A more mundane and realistic theory — although, admittedly, just as speculative — is that the Japarov administration, which has tipped Kyrgyzstan into full-blown authoritarianism, is more than a little unnerved by the mounting popularity of Iyman Nuru. A combination of bespoke legislation targeting religion-tinted political parties and the dissemination of conspiracy fantasies may do Iyman Nuru serious damage.
After fumbling early messaging on the bill, Japarov and his associates have gone on the offensive.
On Thursday, the president convened a meeting to discuss the legislative amendments with the head of the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Kyrgyzstan, a parastatal overseer of the faith, and the chairman and a few members of the Council of Ulema, along with numerous other “well-known religious figures,” as Japarov’s office described them. Also in attendance was the head of the GKNB, Kamchybek Tashiyev, Japarov’s mercurial de facto co-president and the enforcer-in-chief, the General Prosecutor, a deputy Interior Minister, and other senior government officials.
“President Sadyr Japarov emphasised the importance of ensuring the security of the state and of the citizenry,” his office said in a statement. “[He] also emphasised the need for religious leaders to operate in a spirit of unity.”
In short, there is to be no dissent or mischief-making anywhere among the religious establishment on this most sensitive of matters. Or else.