The Duck of Minerva

Framing: Foreign Repression Edition

by Dan Nexon

8 June 2005, 0316 EDT

The BBC:

Mauritania has accused Islamic insurgents from Algeria of attacking a Mauritanian army base in the Sahara desert killing at least 15 soldiers. Defence Minister Baba Ould Sidi said the gunmen were from the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) – suspected of links to al-Qaeda…. In recent months the Mauritanian government has arrested about 50 people accused of links with al-Qaeda.

Critics accuse the government of using the US-led war on terror to crackdown on Islamic opponents.

Human Rights Watch:

Uzbek authorities deny responsibility for the killings. The government claims the death toll was 173 people—law enforcement officials and civilians killed by the attackers, along with the attackers themselves. The government says the attackers were “Islamic extremists” who had an Islamist agenda and help from abroad.

Human Rights Watch found no evidence that any of the speakers at the protest promoted an Islamist agenda. According to numerous witnesses, their grievances were overwhelmingly about poverty, corruption, and government repression. Eyewitness accounts suggest the number of dead to be far higher than the government figure.

Since almost immediately after 9/11 attacks, a good many governments have used “Al-Queda” and “radical Islam” as a cover for more general crackdowns on their political opponents. How much longer will they get away with it? I suspect Uzbekistan is shaping up to be the major test case, and current results don’t seem very encouraging for human-rights activists.

More detailed discussion of similar concerns here.

Filed as: and

Daniel H. Nexon is a Professor at Georgetown University, with a joint appointment in the Department of Government and the School of Foreign Service. His academic work focuses on international-relations theory, power politics, empires and hegemony, and international order. He has also written on the relationship between popular culture and world politics.

He has held fellowships at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation and at the Ohio State University's Mershon Center for International Studies. During 2009-2010 he worked in the U.S. Department of Defense as a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow. He was the lead editor of International Studies Quarterly from 2014-2018.

He is the author of The Struggle for Power in Early Modern Europe: Religious Conflict, Dynastic Empires, and International Change (Princeton University Press, 2009), which won the International Security Studies Section (ISSS) Best Book Award for 2010, and co-author of Exit from Hegemony: The Unraveling of the American Global Order (Oxford University Press, 2020). His articles have appeared in a lot of places. He is the founder of the The Duck of Minerva, and also blogs at Lawyers, Guns and Money.

1 Comment

  1. Anonymous
    Anonymous on 25 October 2010 at 15.21 EDT

    [URL=https://casino-dealer.co.cc/link/casino%20online/1_casinoss.html][IMG]https://casino-dealer.co.cc/img/casino%20online/1_casinoss.png[/IMG][/URL]