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PRESS RELEASE
Göttingen/Munich, 5 February 2002
Five years after the Gulja
massacre China is
intensifying its repression of
Muslims.
On the fifth anniversary of the massacre on 5. February
1997 at Gulja in Xinjiang Province, North-western
China, on Tuesday Gesellschaft für bedrohte Völker
(GfbV) / Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) took
gloomy stock of the present situation. According to
the human rights organisation the repressive measures
applied by Chinese security forces against the local
population of Muslim Uighurs have further intensified
since 11 September. "Beijing is waging war on
Muslims," declared GfbV/STP's Asian Desk
representative Ulrich Delius, speaking in Göttingen.
During November and December last year 526 Uighurs in
the provincial capital of Urumqi alone along with
another 300 more in the south of the region were
arrested on political charges following deployment of
40,000 troops to the area.
"The fight against extremist terrorism cannot justify
forcing Muslim clerics to attend Party re-education
courses and forbidding Muslim students to fast during
Ramadan, as happened last November", Delius maintained.
On 5 January 2002 the Communist Party in Hotan, one of
the largest towns in the south of East Turkistan, went
so far as to call for "cleansing" and "reorganisation
of schools".
On 5 February five years ago, on the day following the
"Holy Night" of Ramadan, serious disturbances broke
out in Gulja as family and friends called for the
release of hundreds of young Muslims arrested during
collective prayers. Up to one hundred people were
killed in the bloody suppression of the protests,
hundreds were injured and at least 4,000 Uighurs were
arrested. For a period one in three of the male
population of Gulja were being held in detention.
"The repression is being directed against the Uighur
civilian population as a whole", said Enver Can,
President of the East Turkestan National Congress, in
Munich. In Gulja (Yili in Chinese) the climate of
violence promoted by the Chinese authorities and the
security forces has become even more intolerable,
added Delius. On 3 January 2002 the provincial
prefecture issued an edict providing for special
surveillance of Islamic festivals, wedding and
funerals and the suppression of "feudal rites". At
least 65 Uighurs have been condemned to death and
executed for their presumed involvement in the
disturbances five years ago. Most recently on
15.October 2001 five Uighurs received death sentences
for taking part in the public protests. However many "confessions"
have been extracted under pressure. 97 Uighurs have
been given lengthy prison sentences. Chinese police
officers who took part in the repression of the
disturbances have not been held accountable for crimes
committed.
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ETIC REPORT 2000 
