"Breeding Discontent" and "A Failed Revolution"
The NCHR, in cooperation with the Norwegian Helsinki Committee, invite all to attend a film Showing of Breeding Discontent and A Failed Revolution, followed by a conversation with the film’s director and creator, journalist Michael Andersen.
Comments by Ivar Dale, Norwegian Helsinki Committee. Language English/Norwegian.
In Breeding Discontent, Michael Andersen investigates root causes of extremism in Central Asia.
With recent speculation that the West may not win the battle in Afghanistan, many fear that a resurgent Taliban will lead to increased radicalisation in neighbouring Central Asia. Since Nato's offensives in Afghanistan and Pakistan have seen hundreds of al-Qaeda fighters flee into Central Asia, experts are concerned that the former Soviet republics of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan could be the next flashpoint in the fight against Islamic extremism.
Critics of Central Asia's oppressive governments argue that the extremist threat does not stem from Afghanistan but from local oppression of political opponents and religious groups.
The autocratic Central Asian rulers, many of whom have been in power since Soviet times, have been using the fear of Islamic extremism to justify their oppression for decades. It is exactly this brutal clamp-down on any kind of political opposition or independent religious activity which is sending more people flocking to outlawed religious organisations to vent their frustration
In A Failed Revolution Roza Otunbaeva, now interim President of the Kyrgyz Republic, talks candidately about the failed ambitions of the Tulip Revolution, the corruption of the Bakiev regime and the inevitability of another revolution - now proved true. The film originally aired in August 2008.