Kyrgyz authorities have reportedly instituted criminal proceedings against leader of the cell of the women’s wing of the extremist religious Hizb ut-Tahrir group in Kyrgyzstan.

Radio Liberty’s Kyrgyz Service reports criminal proceedings have been instituted against a 33-year-old Shaira in the Kyrgyz southern city of Osh.

Experts reportedly note that the number of religious radicals has been increasing in Kyrgyzstan.

Shaira and three other persons suspected of recruiting and sending Kyrgyz nationals to Iraq and Syria were detained in Osh in the summer of 2015 before boarding the Osh-Istanbul flight.

Because of lack of proofs, Shaira was acting as a witness in the case.  Since that time, she has reportedly been under observation of the law enforcement authorities.

According to the Kyrgyz Interior Ministry, the woman has been recently detained while distributing leaflets of the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group and the Jamaat al-Tawhid wal-Jihad militant group.

Jamaat al-Tawhid wal-Jihad was a militant Jihadist group led by the Jordanian national Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.  The group started in Jordan in 1999, then became a decentralized network during the Iraqi insurgency (2003–11) with foreign fighters and a considerable Iraqi membership.

The preliminary investigation has reportedly established that Shaira is leader of the cell of the Hizb ut-Tahrir women’s wing in Kyrgyzstan.

Meanwhile, the CIS Anti-Terrorism Center notes that the number of female religious radicals in the CIS nations has increased by 24 percent.

Hizb ut-Tahrir members have taken active part in provocations against Muslims, in particular, though involving them in coup attempts in Syria, Egypt, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and other countries.

Experts note that extremist groups are targeting poorly-educated, socially vulnerable women.  According to them, radicals are trying to replenish their ranks with poorly-educated women.

Hizb ut-Tahrir is an international, pan-Islamic political organization, which describes its "ideology as Islam", and its aim as the re-establishment of “the Islamic Khilafah (Caliphate)” or Islamic state.  The new caliphate would unify the Muslim community (Ummah) in a unitary (not federal) “superstate” of unified Muslim-majority countries spanning from Morocco in West Africa to the southern Philippines in East Asia. The proposed state would enforce Islamic Shariah law, return to its “rightful place as the first state in the world,” and carry “the Da'wah of Islam” to the rest of the world.

The organization was founded in 1953 as a Sunni Muslim organization in Jerusalem by Taqiuddin al-Nabhani, an Islamic scholar and appeals court judge (Qadi) from Palestine.  Since then Hizb ut-Tahrir has spread to more than 50 countries. 

Russia and other CIS countries have banned it unlike the U.S. and West European countries where it operates freely.