| Description |
1 online resource (14 pages) |
| Series |
Asia briefing ; no. 97 |
|
Update briefing |
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Asia briefing (Series) ; no. 97.
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Update briefing (International Crisis Group)
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| Contents |
Overview -- Prisons in Central Asia -- Islamists and the state -- Islamists in prison -- Conclusion |
| Summary |
The number of Islamists in Kyrgyz and Kazakh prisons is small but growing, in both size and political significance. Well-organised Islamist proselytisers, mostly imprisoned on charges of religious extremism, are consolidating their position within the informal structures of power behind prison walls. Incarcerating determined activists is providing them with the opportunity to extend their influence among convicts, at first inside prison and then on their release. Problems within jails in Central Asia have been known to seep outside the prison walls; the expansion of radical Islamist thought within prisons is likely to have serious consequences. The paradox of the situation is that, in private at least, political leaders in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan are intensely aware that the best way to defeat extremism is to address woeful social and economic conditions, fight the systemic top-to-bottom corruption that besets all the region's regimes, and in the words of one regional leader, "give people a future". Faced with the risk of renewed Islamic insurgency in Central Asia as a result of conflict in Afghanistan and their own policy failures, governments are hitting out at radical Islamists, sending more of them to prison for longer |
| Notes |
"15 December 2009." |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references |
| Subject |
Islam and politics -- Asia, Central
|
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Islamic fundamentalism -- Asia, Central
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Prisons -- Asia, Central
|
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Islam and politics.
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Islamic fundamentalism.
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Prisons.
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Central Asia.
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| Form |
Electronic book
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| Author |
International Crisis Group.
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