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CHINESE COMMUNIST LEADERS
STEP UP IDEOLOGICAL
CAMPAIGN AGAINST SEPARATISM IN KASHGAR PREFECTURE
July 25, 2002
Our correspondent Arslan reports from Kashgar, East
Turkistan.
Beginning July 15, the Chinese government has stepped
up and extended its "antiseparatist campaign in the
ideological sphere" to all counties of Kashgar
Prefecture. Local administrations organized one
political meeting after another in 11 counties of the
prefecture.
A large group of officials of the Xinjiang Uighur
Autonomous Region's
communist party organization and the communist party
organization of Kashgar Prefecture supervised the
meetings.
On June 21, a meeting took place in Kona Shahar county
where about six hundred people were organized to take
part in the educational campaign. On July 2, they were
sent to villages and schools in order to launch the
ideological anti-separatist campaign.
Classes were suspended in schools for political
meetings, and
suspected religious people, and even ordinary traders,
were driven
together to the meetings from streets. School children
were ordered to come to schools although it was time
for the summer break. The
government workers and school children who were
suspected in religious activities were ordered to
present their cases at the meetings.
At the second stage of the political campaign, a large
number of books on the Uighur history and culture were
forcibly collected from school libraries, the Kashgar
city's "Xinhua" bookstore, and even school children.
Our correspondent witnessed himself that a large pile
of books was collected in the secondary school No. 1.
The collected books were piled and burned.
A large number of leaflets, booklets, and audio tapes
that denounce
religion and "historical distortions of the Xinjiang
history" were
distributed to people.
The Chinese government initiated similar actions in
Maralbashi county on June 15, in Yengisar county on
June 17, in Karghalik and Yopurga counties on June 18,
and in the cities of Yengisheher, Yarkent, Payzavat,
and Kashgar.
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