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Uighurs Banned From Beijing Hotels During Congressna
John Pomfret
Wednesday, November 6, 2002
BEIJING, Nov. 5 -- The government has banned most
hotels in Beijing from accommodating members of the
Uighur ethnic group from northwestern China, telling
some proprietors that security services fear
demonstrations during the upcoming 16th Communist
Party Congress.
Proprietors at several hotels, contacted by telephone,
said police told them not to allow Uighurs to stay in
their establishments and to report any Uighurs who
appear at their counters. One proprietor said he was
told by police that 700 Uighurs are believed to have
infiltrated Beijing and plan to hold demonstrations
against China's rule of Xinjiang, their home region.
Beijing's ban on Uighurs spending the night is just one
of a series of measures security forces in the capital
have taken in advance of the party congress, which
generally occurs every five years and anoints a new
leadership of the 66 million-member Communist Party.
The congress will open Friday and last for about one
week.
On Monday, Chinese police detained a government
official turned democracy activist, Fang Jue, and
tightened surveillance of another dissident, Chen
Zhiming. Both have recently been released from jail
sentences imposed on them for advocating political
reforms. The party also announced it had stripped a
former top banker, Wang Xuebing, of alternate
membership in the Central Committee and expelled him
from the party.
"Wang Xuebing took advantage of his position to
embezzle, and accepted bribes," said the official New
China News Agency. "He had a debauched lifestyle and
corrupted morality."
Police have established checkpoints on major arteries
leading into the capital and on highways that ring the
city. Drivers of vehicles with out-of-town license
plates must produce a permit to enter the city. Squads
of police raided nightclubs and did random urine
checks at Beijing bars checking for drug use,
especially of ecstasy.
Police are also checking the identification papers of
people entering Tiananmen Square, the political heart
of China. One police official at the square said
authorities there were concerned that members of the
banned spiritual movement Falun Gong could seek to use
the congress to protest the two-year crackdown on
their group.
Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States,
China has sought to equate its struggle against small
groups of Uighur separatists with the U.S. fight
against terrorism. China's struggle got a major boost
recently when Washington backed a bid to have an
organization of Uighur separatists placed on the U.N.
terrorist watch list.
A Turkic ethnic group, China's 8 million Uighurs live
mainly in Xinjiang, in the far northwest. Many Uighurs
complain that China has discriminated against them and
their Islamic culture since Communists took control of
the region after the revolution in 1949.
An employee at the reservations desk of the Capital
Hotel said the hotel was informed by police that it
had to "strictly control Uighurs and strictly check
them." "You know," the employee said, "those Xinjiang
groups have connections with Afghanistan."
Across town, at the Jimen Hotel, an employee said the
local precinct banned Uighurs from staying at the
hotel. "In the beginning, when Uighurs stayed here we
had to report it," the employee said. "Now they can't
stay here at all."
© 2002 The Washington Post Company
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