Armenian Accused of Islamic Extremism Goes on Trial in Uzbekistan

Aramayis Avakian and his daughter (Source: RFE/RL)

TASHKENT, Uzbekistan (RFE/RL) ”” A court in Uzbekistan has opened the trial of an Armenian man and his four Uzbek business partners who stand accused of having links with Islamist militants.

Members of the family of Aramayis Avakian, a 33-year-old citizen of Uzbekistan, insist, however, that he is being persecuted because of a business dispute with a local strongman.

Avakian, a father of two from the town of Jizak in eastern Uzbekistan, went missing on September 4. Six weeks later his family found out that he had actually been arrested by the Uzbek National Security Service (NSS) and was charged with “religious extremism, separatism and fundamentalism”