There was no information about regional
women’s protests during the Soviet period. Some
examples were discovered after the disintegration
of the Soviet Union, while others were reported
outside the country. Under Soviet rule, women
were active participants in nationalist movements
in the Caucasus. In a popular nationalist protest in
1989, 20 Georgians, most of them women, were
killed and hundreds injured when Soviet troops
attacked a demonstration in Tbilisi.
Contemporary women’s protests underscore
political/religious persecution and power abuses by
existing regimes. In Uzbekistan on 2 July 2001, an
Uzbek militia rounded up about 50 women and
their children in Tashkent and 30 in Andijan. These
women were protesting against the detention and
harsh treatment of their male relatives, alleged
members of banned religious groups. Protestors
were trying to present a petition addressed to the
Uzbek president, which accused the interior min-
istry’s staff of torture and physical pressure against
the detainees. Chechen women also protested
against the detention, ill-treatment, and disappear-
ance of local males during the Russian federal
troops’ cleansing operations in Chechnya (HRWWR
2003b). On 15 March 2001, federal troops carried
out a punitive operation in the settlement of Novo-
groznenskii, killing several civilians. In response,
several hundred local women blocked traffic on
one of the main roads in Chechnya. For three days,
they chanted “No to murders, cleansings, robbery
and camps! Where are you, leaders of Chechnya?
Where are you, muftis? Where are you, judges?
They are killing us with your agreement!” (MHRC
2001) Some of these protests are documented
either by regional mass media (Chechnya) or on the
Internet (Uzbekistan, Chechnya).
Women’s protests expose political problems by
constructing a sociopolitical critique of the existing
regimes around women’s roles as mothers and
wives, thus becoming a strong political voice and a
source of opposition to the local governments. On
21 March 2001, about 300 female protestors in
Andijan (Uzbekistan) demanded the release of their
male relatives, imprisoned for their religious prac-
tices. The signs that women carried read: “2001:
Year of the Widow and Orphan,” a hollow echo of
the Uzbek president’s declaration of the year of
2001 as the “Year of the Mother and Child.” The
demonstration was dispersed by local militia forces
(HRWWR 2002). Similarly, in Chechnya on 8
March 2001, International Women’s Day, about a
hundred women, whose male relatives had disap-
peared after being arrested by federal troops, gath-
ered in the center of Grozny. They had signs in their
the caucasus and central asia 635hands that read “Russia, return our children!” and
“Let our children go!” (PRIMA News Agency
2001).
The regional governments’ persecution of female
protesters shows that local regimes perceive
women’s actions as a direct political threat
(HRWWR 2003a). In spite of growing harassment,
local women challenge the regimes’ treatment of
civilians by globally publicizing the abuse of power.
As a result, the Uzbek government has finally
allowed international observers access into some of
the country’s prisons (HRWWR 2002). Russian
authorities also introduced two decrees requiring
the presence of local officials during the arrest of
civilians in Chechnya, as well as some degree of
infrastructure to address grievances. They also
began an investigation into disappearances (HRW
2002, HRWWR 2003b).
Although governmental concessions seem to be
small and illusory, women’s protests persist in pub-
licly confronting existing power relations in the
regions by producing a social critique that uses
their gender roles as mothers and wives (HRW
2003). Thus, women’s protests have become “one
of the major channels of public voice” in both
Central Asia and the Caucasus at the beginning of
the twenty-first century (Norris et al. 2002, 19).Bibliography
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