WHAT do a report on the mistreatment of migrant workers, a pamphlet from Hizb ut-Tahrir (an international group that wants an Islamic caliphate but disavows violence) and a Dutch film called “I am gay and Muslim” have in common? According to the authorities in Kyrgyzstan, a former Soviet republic of 6m people, they are all “extremist material”. Anyone found to be in possession of such dangerous stuff faces a minimum prison sentence of three years.

Human Rights Watch (HRW), a pressure group, says that at least 258 people have been convicted of possessing extremist material since 2010. More than 500 new cases have been opened in the past three years. The law has been amended twice to make it harsher, first by outlawing mere possession rather than distribution and then by setting mandatory minimum sentences. A subsequent softening of the rules has not been implemented.

Activists say that the woolly definition of extremist material and the severe sentences encourage abuse. Allegations of police planting jihadist magazines on suspects, or demanding bribes to make the charges go away, are common. The law has also been used against journalists and lawyers. In one particularly Kafkaesque case in 2016, police raided the house of a lawyer who had represented a client charged with possession of extremist material. When a copy of the material in question was found in the client’s case file, the lawyer, too, was convicted of the offence.

Letta Tayler, author of the HRW report, acknowledges that the authorities have good reason to worry about Islamist extremism. She says officials have told her that 764 locals have gone abroad to fight for groups like Islamic State and al-Qaeda. Ethnic Uzbeks, who live mainly in the south of the country, are especially susceptible to radicalisation. Although they comprise only 15% of the population, they account for a majority of those convicted of offences related to extremism, according to a study by the supreme court from 2016.

Noah Tucker, a journalist and academic, argues that Kyrgyzstan’s ethnic Uzbeks have been marginalised by successive governments since inter-ethnic clashes in 2010. They are under-represented in, and frequently intimidated by, the security services. Ms Tayler says that repressive laws, which many Uzbeks believe are aimed at them, only aggravate their sense of alienation. Add that to the long list of grievances against a government which still claims, ever less plausibly, to be the only democratic one in Central Asia.