Uzbek authorities prevent attempted pro-Palestinian rally 

About 100 people attempted to hold a rally in support of Palestine in the Uzbek capital Tashkent on Sunday, reports say. 

The protesters were detained by the police as soon as they gathered in Tashkent’s central Amir Temur Square.  

Meanwhile, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev on Tuesday expressed Uzbekistan’s “firm solidarity with the Palestinian people and support for their right to create their own independent state”, according to his press office.

The Uzbek authorities do not allow any political protests. They are particularly harsh in suppressing any Muslim political activism.  

The country’s law-enforcement bodies were likely on high alert to prevent possible public outbreaks of pro-Palestinian sentiment, especially after the unrest in Russia’s Dagestan region on Sunday, when a mob stormed the airport in the regional centre, Makhachkala, in search of Jews. 

Most of the detained Uzbek protesters were released “after a brief conversation”, but several were charged with holding an unauthorised rally – a legal breach that is punished with a fine, or up to 15 days in jail, reports say. 

A call to hold a pro-Palestinian rally appeared on Uzbek social media a few days earlier. The post featured a banner similar to the main banner used at Saturday’s pro-Palestinian rally in Istanbul, and placards saying, “Shoulder to shoulder with Palestine” and “If we are many, we will be heard”, according to the independent Gazeta.uz website. 

Effect.uz Telegram channel  posted grainy photos from Amir Temur Square showing about a dozen people next to the Temur monument, the square’s central feature, including uniformed police officers and a police bus, usually used for detaining large numbers of people.  

The attempt to hold a rally despite tight government control shows that there is strong support for Palestine in Uzbekistan, where most young people are devout Muslims. 

Uzbek political observer Kamoliddin Rabbimov, in a Facebook post, accused Israel of “committing many crimes” and criticised the US for supporting it.  

He said this would further erode US influence in the world, particularly in the Global South. 

“The USA will lose confidence in the Muslim world precisely because of Israel. Perhaps, because of Israel, the world order will change,” Rabbimov said. 

There is a strong sense of disillusionment with the USA in Uzbekistan because of the former’s failure in neighbouring Afghanistan.  

The late Uzbek president Islam Karimov allowed the US military to set up a base on Uzbek soil for the Afghan campaign. Karimov was notorious for his suppression of Muslims in the country in the name of fighting Islamic radicalism. 

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