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EXECUTED UYGHUR REFUGEE LEFT
BEHIND TAPED RECORD OF TORTURE IN CHINA
Chinese police used electric chair, nails, in bid to
extract confession
WASHINGTON, Oct. 23, 2003--Chinese authorities in
Xinjiang have executed a Uyghur dissident who detailed
a grim litany of torture sessions in an unprecedented
testimony recorded for Radio Free Asia (RFA), which he
requested be held until he was "in a safe place."
Officials in Hotan confirmed Oct. 22 that Shirali had
been executed in Hotan but declined to say when the
execution had occurred. Shirali was tried and
convicted Nov. 12, 2002, and sentenced to death in
March 2003 for "manufacturing and stockpiling illegal
weapons and explosives," separatism, and "organizing
and leading a terrorist organization."
Shirali--also known as Shaheer Ali and Ghojamamt
Abbas--spoke to RFA's Uyghur service in May 2001,
describing eight months of torture from April to
December of 1994 in the Old Market Prison, in Guma (in
Chinese, Pishan) County, in the Xinjiang Autonomous
Region. In several interviews conducted by telephone
from Nepal, Shirali described how he was beaten with
shackles, shocked in an electric chair, repeatedly
kicked unconscious, and then drenched in cold water to
revive him for more torture.
His account spanned torture sessions that recurred
every 10 or 15 days during his detention. He referred
to his interrogators throughout as "executioners,"
saying they told him to confess to separatist
activities or risk dying in the interrogation room. He
was frequently interrogated through the use of an
electric chair. "One executioner winked at the other,
who then came over and pressed down the switch of the
chair. As if someone was pouring me with boiling water
and peeling off my skin, my entire body was in a harsh
pain. I was tortured this way for about three minutes,"
Shirali, who would have been 31 this year, said.
"After a short while, that executioner turned off the
chair switch. He came to me and said to me using the
interpreter, 'Just like what we said, you will not get
out of here alive. So you must confess.'"
Shirali said he belonged to the Eastern Turkestan
Islamic Reform Party, which he described as a
nonmilitant organization. Chinese news reports claim,
however, that Shirali was a member of the East
Turkestan Islamic Hezbollah group--part of what
Beijing describes as "one of the most dangerous
terrorist organizations." Beijing at one time offered
a bounty of 500,000 yuan (about U.S. $60,000) for his
capture.
"They tied my hands and hung me up high. Then they
beat me for about half an hour with shackles. I
screamed loudly because I could not stand the
pain.During this time my body was covered with blood.
[Then] they took me down and poured a bucket of water
over me," Shirali said.
On another occasion, Ali said he was asked for details
of an organization working for independence for the
predominantly Muslim Xinjiang Autonomous Region of
China, known among Uyghurs as East Turkestan. "I told
them, 'I became a member of the organization following
the leadership of Ablikim Mamatimin and Ablimit Oshur.
But I don't know anything other than this. And
I don't have anything else.'"
"That heavy executioner said nothing and turned on the
chair switch. As if someone was pulling out my heart
and sticking a needle through my body, this time I was
suffering from an unbearable burning pain. I screamed
and bit my tongue... By this time I had already
unconsciously had a bowel movement. My cellmates
changed my clothes."
In one such session, Shirali said, "They shouted at me
and broke a couple of nails on my right foot--then
they pushed nails into two of the toes on my left foot.
I lost consciousness because I couldn't stand this
torture. When I opened my eyes, I saw my cellmates
sitting around me. I had been unconscious for exactly
seven hours."
"I was in cell number three. It was three meters long
and two meters wide. It had no window. There were only
a couple of tiny openings on the roof for some light.
Including me, there were eight people in this cell,"
he said.
Shirali escaped from Xinjiang to Nepal in November
2000 by stowing away inside the tanker of an oil truck
headed for Tibet, where he arrived drenched in toxic
fuel. He then spent six months trekking from Tibet to
Nepal. In December 2001, while awaiting resettlement
as a U.N.-recognized refugee, his home was raided by
Nepalese police, who detained him in Hanuman Dhoka
Prison.
Human rights observers believe he and another Uyghur,
Abdu Allah Sattar, were forcibly repatriated together
by either Nepalese police or Chinese Embassy officials
in January 2002--taking advantage of the political
momentum against terrorism following the Sept.11, 2001
attacks on the United States.
Amnesty International issued an appeal on behalf of
the two men, together with Kheyum Whashim Ali, in
April 2002. The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees
had recognized all three as refugees.
Chinese authorities describe the East Turkestan
Islamic Hezbollah group--of which they say Shirali was
a member--as "one of the most dangerous terrorist
organizations." In a series of allegations published
in September 2002, Beijing said the East Turkestan
Islamic Movement (ETIM) had used various names
including East Turkestan Islamic Hezbollah and East
Turkestan Party.Together, Chinese officials said, ETIM
factions had killed 166 people and injured some 440
through its activities. Both the United Nations and
the United States have blacklisted ETIM as a terrorist
organization.
Uyghurs constitute a distinct, Turkic-speaking, Muslim
minority in northwestern China and Central Asia. They
declared a short-lived East Turkestan Republic in
Xinjiang in the late 1940s but have remained under
Beijing's control since 1949.
According to a Chinese Government white paper, in 1998
Xinjiang comprised 8 million Uyghurs, 2.5 million
other ethnic minorities, and 6.4 million Han
Chinese-up from 300,000 Han in 1949. Most Uyghurs are
poor farmers, and at least 25 percent are illiterate.#####
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