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Amnesty Calls for Inquiry into Crackdown on Muslim
Uprising in China
BEIJING, Feb 5 (AFP) - Amnesty International on
Wednesday called for an independent inquiry into
allegations of serious human rights violations during
and after a crackdown on a 1997 demonstration by
ethnic Uighur minorities in western China.
The appeal comes on the sixth anniversary of the
demonstration in Yining city in the restive,
traditionally Muslim-dominated Xinjiang region.
The Chinese government has said 10 people were killed
in the unrest but Uighur sources at the time said
about 100 died.
In a statement Wednesday, Amnesty said dozens of
people were killed or injured when Chinese security
forces reportedly opened fire on Uighur demonstrators
in Yining on February 5 and 6, 1997.
The initially peaceful demonstration on February 5 was
followed by several days of sporadic rioting in which
both civilians and members of the security forces were
killed or injured.
Thousands of people were detained as the security
forces went systematically through the streets,
arresting suspected protestors and supporters,
including their relatives. Many of those detained were
reportedly tortured, Amnesty said.
Amnesty has written to Ismail Tiliwaldi, the
newly-appointed chair of the Xinjiang government,
calling for an investigation and requesting further
information about those who remain in prison.
"We fear that many have been imprisoned in violation
of their fundamental human rights or after unfair
trials," Amnesty said, adding that it had records of
20 people thought to still remain in prison, but
believed the total to be much higher.
"The authorities must make public details of the
whereabouts of those detained together with their
current legal status and the charges against them,"
the international human rights organization said.
"It must also address other serious human rights
abuses perpetrated during the crackdown on the
protestors."
A group of several hundred protestors were reportedly
hosed down with icy water after being detained in a
public open space on February 5, 1997, Amnesty said.
Many contracted severe frostbite as a result and had
to have limbs amputated. At least two people detained
in connection with the demonstration later died in
custody, apparently as a result of torture, Amnesty
said.
The Chinese authorities have since claimed that the
rioting was organised by "terrorists", but Amnesty
said it has failed to provide any evidence to
substantiate these claims.
Eyewitness accounts indicate that the demonstrators
were local people and that the rioting was mainly
provoked by the brutality of the security forces,
Amnesty said.
"In the absence of any reliable or credible evidence
of 'terrorist' involvement in these protests, this
appears to be yet another example of the authorities
using the subjective yardstick of 'terrorism' to
justify repression and serious human rights violations
against people attempting to exercise their
fundamental human rights in (Xinjiang)," Amnesty said.
China has ruled Xinjiang to varying degrees for
centuries and it re-established control in 1949 by
crushing the short-lived state of East Turkestan that
emerged during the Chinese civil war, which ended that
year.
Since then, Beijing has encouraged and assisted in the
mass migration of Han Chinese to the region, some say
to dilute nationalist tendencies, but hopes of
independence have been rekindled since the fall of the
Soviet Union and the emergence of the Muslim states of
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
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