Kyrgyzstan’s State Committee for National Security said on June 25 that “a leader and nine members” of the Yaqyn Inkar Islamic group, which is banned in the Central Asian nation, were detained in the southern Batken region, RFE/RL’s Kyrgyz Service reported.
The State Committee added that 12 residents of the region denounced their membership in the group after police held “explanatory talks” with them. Yaqyn Inkar was founded in India. Authorities in Kyrgyzstan, a mostly Muslim country whose secular government is wary of people whose religious beliefs or practices fall outside the mainstream, deemed it an extremist organization and banned it in 2017.