NAMANGAN, Uzbekistan - As Uzbekistan's hardline government pursues extremists that it blames for provoking last week's deadly clashes in the eastern city of Andijan, tensions have risen in this neighbouring province with a history of defying the authorities.
Following the violence, extra checkpoints have sprung up on the roads of the province of Namangan, the birthplace of the country's most notorious Islamist opposition group, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU).
Discontent tends to simmer covertly in Uzbekistan, where the government of President Islam Karimov has stamped out all opposition and ruthlessly moves against anyone suspected of harbouring sympathies toward Islamist groups.
For example students who glimpsed coverage of the Andijan events on a Western television channel in an English language centre were told by teachers not to talk about what they had seen, the students told AFP.
But behind the walls of private homes, residents let vent their displeasure with the corruption of Karimov's regime and the authorities' relentless pursuit of suspected Islamists, said by rights activists to have involved the arrest and systematic torture of many people who simply peacefully practice Islam.
"People are fed up with all these problems," the owner of a Namangan confectionary factory said.
"To run my business I have to bribe all local officials, not just the tax and police officials -- privately my friends say they would support any uprising," said the factory owner, aged 25.
Over tea in his strictly Islamic household, Tursunboy (not his real name), two of whose sons are serving 17-year jail terms on extremism charges, voiced his frustration with Karimov's regime.
"A few years ago the police asked a neighbour if they could put a camera in his home to watch us with, but the neighbour refused."
Tursunboy said his sons were not violent extremists but simply distributed leaflets for the Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir, which advocates the peaceful setting up of an Islamic state throughout Central Asia.
Another son spent nine months on the run, before turning himself in at a police station. He signed a statement renouncing his beliefs and pleading Karimov's forgiveness and was freed.
"Most people would support Hizb ut-Tahrir if its ideas were allowed to spread freely," said Tursunboy, as a female relative handed him a teapot from behind a curtain, keeping herself hidden.
"What happened in Andijan is not in line with our ideology. Our religion is not just about going to the mosque five times a day... first of all we should live and work in an Islamic environment," Tursunboy said.
Many in Namangan agree with his view -- the city is the birthplace of Juma Namangani, who founded the IMU in 1996 to fight Karimov's secular rule in traditionally Muslim Uzbekistan.
The group staged raids into Uzbekistan from its southern neighbor Afghanistan, where the radical Taliban regime had given it shelter, until 2001, when a US-led coalition routed the Taliban after the September 11 attacks in New York and Washington.
Namangani is believed to have been killed and the IMU mostly destroyed following the US campaign in Afghanistan, during which Karimov agreed to host a US air base on his soil.
But not everyone in Namangan supports the view that Uzbekistan, a landlocked impoverished country of 24 million, should live according to Islam.
Many still shudder when they recall attempts by local leaders to establish strict Sharia law amid the ashes of the Soviet Union.
One woman recalled being dragged from her home naked and tied to a lamppost because she was suspected of prostitution. Other witnesses recall religious groups carrying out summary executions of suspected criminals.
"We know he (Karimov) is ruthless, but we have no alternative," said a university teacher on condition of anonymity. "If they (radical Muslims) came to power the situation would be even worse."
The weekend's violence in Andijan -- during which up to 745 people are feared to have been killed after soldiers fired into a mass anti-government rally -- is likely to further divide the rulers from the ruled in this country.
"They (the authorities) have sharpened the contrasts," said one Western observer on condition of anonymity.
"If you assume gathering on a square is moderate and this is what happens, you either have to stop protesting or go deeper underground," the observer said.

05/17/2005 11:24 GMT