BISHKEK/OSH. Dec 2 (Interfax) - Authorities in the city of Osh in southern Kyrgyzstan will exercise control over the activities of Muslim clerics, a City Hall official has told Interfax.
"The decision has been prompted by clerics' frequent and not always positive interference in social and political developments, including the June tragic riots and failed terrorist attacks," the official said.
A special commission made up of law enforcement officials and religious figures will be set up to evaluate the activities of Osh mullahs and imams. Clerics involved in "unseemly activities" will be barred from offering religious services.
"We intend to leave the right to offer the Friday namaz to just several central mosques and strip small mosques located on the outskirts of that privilege," the official said.
Earlier, four clerics were found guilty of instigating ethnic clashes between ethnic Kyrgyz and Uzbeks in June. Rocket flares were fired from one the central mosques as a signal for the riots to begin.
On November 29, Farkhat Nurmatov, the imam of the Mazhrintal mosque, was killed in a special operation to track down and arrest the organizers. He was also among the suspects involved in the May 2007 explosions in the office of the Ekho Osha newspaper. Investigators found out that he had been trained in Kokand (Uzbekistan) and Medina (Saudi Arabia).