UZBEKISTAN: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE OFFICIAL DISCOURSE ON TERRORISM

Since its independence, Uzbekistan has often portrayed terrorism as one of the gravest threats to its sovereignty, integrity, unity, and internal stability. Uzbekistan’s authoritarian regime has been perceived endorsing and executing a series of counter-terrorism policies to exorcise this hazardous threat that includes all possible tactics for eliminating terrorism from the respective region. Unlike the state’s proclamation about the increasing gravity of the terrorist threat, some international human right organizations and Central Asian experts depict an opposite picture of it. They are seen to be very critical of the state’s exaggerated version of the terrorist threat and question the state’s intention behind such projection. This paper makes a systematic effort to critically examine how Uzbekistan’s authoritarian leaders have constructed official discourse on terrorism, taking into consideration the social, political and economic context of the region. The paper also examines the authenticity of the state’s continuous projection of terrorism to be one of the gravest threats to the sovereignty and integrity of the region by incorporating and analyzing a detailed account of the terrorist acts that have taken place in Uzbekistan since 1991 to 2018. Finally, the paper also explains why the Uzbek authoritarian regime is keen to construct terrorism to be one of the most dangerous threats to the state. Keywords: terrorism, Uzbekistan, Counterterrorism Act, security, non-state actor