[IsraelTimes] Alisher Tursunov, widely known as Mubashshir Ahmad and boasting a million followers online, pleads not guilty after endorsing Qatar-based fatwa; could face 5-8 years in prisonA prominent independent Moslem Uzbek holy man went on trial on Tuesday in Tashkent on charges of promoting extremism and inciting hatred against Israel, in one of the highest-profile cases regarding religious practices in recent years.
Alisher Tursunov, widely known as Mubashshir Ahmad, faces charges of inciting religious hatred, distribution of materials that threaten public order and illegal distribution of materials with religious content. In total, the charges carry a penalty of five to eight years in prison.
Tursunov, 51, ran a popular religious media project, Azon.uz, which had some 1.2 million subscribers on YouTube before he shut it down in 2023 under threat of legal punishment. He subsequently moved to
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire...
, where he was arrested and extradited to Uzbekistan in May.
The charges stem from both his work on the Azon.uz project as well as posts the holy man made on social media, according to his lawyer. He has pleaded not guilty
"Wudn't me."
to the charges, local media reported.
In a post on his Telegram channel in April, Tursunov spoke out in favor of a religious ruling issued by the International Union of Moslem Scholars, a Qatar
...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi...
-based group, advocating for jihad against Israel over "the bloodshed in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about
oppressionand
disproportionate response...
"I would ask our government to listen to these calls," Tursunov said. "We are all Moslems, including leaders on top, and we should follow the fatwa issued to Moslems."
The fatwa "instructs Moslem governments to support Hamas
..a regional Iranian catspaw,...’militarily, economically, and politically’ and to besiege Israel by ’land, air, and sea,'" according to a report by the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
Uzbekistan, a landlocked, majority Moslem country in Central Asia, home to some 38 million people, has had diplomatic relations with Israel since soon after the fall of the Soviet Union.
Islam Karimov, who ruled Uzbekistan as president from 1991 until his death in 2016, was widely accused, including by the US government and international human rights
When they're defined by the state or an NGO they don't mean much...
organizations, of cracking down on Moslems under the pretext of fighting religious fundamentalism and terrorism.
Karimov’s successor, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, initially relaxed strict religious restrictions, but in recent years has instituted curbs on religious freedom, according to Human Rights Watch.
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