Tajikistan jails eight from outlawed militant group

Tajikistan has sentenced eight members of radical militant group Hizb ut-Tahrir to between six and 18 years in prison, accusing them of "anti-state activities," a court official said on Saturday. "Among the accused are both rank-and-file members as well as one of the local regional leaders who received an 18-year sentence," a court official in the Central Asian country's capital Dushanbe told AFP.
They have been convicted of "organising and participating in a criminal organisation as well as instigating national, racial and religious animosity," the official said. The accused were arrested last autumn. Hizb ut-Tahrir is an extremist off-shoot of the Muslim Brotherhood and was founded in the 1950s in the Middle East.
It appeared in Central Asia around 10 years ago and is considered one of the region's most active fundamentalist Islamic organisations. The party's goal in Central Asia, which was under Communist rule until the Soviet collapse in 1991, is the creation of a religious state throughout the region. Tajikistan, a majority-Muslim country and the poorest state to emerge from the collapse of the Soviet Union, has in recent years been wracked by violence blamed on militants.