International Crisis Group in its latest report raises concern over growing radicalization of women in Kyrgyzstan, News Agency "24.kg" reported.
"Kyrgyzstan's increasingly authoritarian government is adopting a counter-productive approach to the country's growing radicalisation. Instead of tackling the root causes of a phenomenon that has seen increasing numbers, including many women, joining groups such as Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT), it is resorting to heavy-handed police methods that risk pushing yet more Kyrgyz towards radicalism," the experts said.
ICG believes that Kyrgyzstan's authorities view HT, which in Kyrgyzstan counts up to 8,000 members, perhaps 800 to 2,000 of them women, as a major security threat. But for some men and ever more women, it offers a sense of identity and belonging, solutions to the day-to-day failings of the society they live in.
"The only effective long-term strategy is political. For this, however, Kyrgyzstan - and its neighbours in Central Asia, all of whom face similar problems - needs to take serious steps to eradicate systemic corruption and improve living conditions. Economic crisis and rigged elections strengthen HT's appeal to those who feel socially and politically dispossessed and buttress its argument that Western democracy and capitalism are morally and practically flawed," the report read.