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Bingtuan Supreme
Court Affirms Jail Terms for Uyghur Youths
2003-12-22 RFA
The Bingtuan Supreme Court in China’s Xinjiang
Autonomous Region has upheld jail terms for 18 youths
belonging to the Uyghur ethnic minority, RFA’s Uyghur
service reports. All 18 were sentenced by a lower
court in August 1999 for alleged anti-Chinese
separatist activities.
The alleged leader of the group, Shirmehemet
Abdurishit, must now complete a 15-year jail term, to
be followed by five years’ deprivation of his
political rights, according to Uyghur sources and the
Chinese media. The other 17 defendants, whose names
haven’t been released, will now complete jail terms of
up to 14 years.
The group was accused of engaging in separatist
activities in May and June 1998 including “inciting [others]
to split China, organizing meetings, taking oaths,
accepting membership, and possessing illegal
publications and counter-revolutionary video for
propaganda purposes, according to the Chinese-language
newspaper Wen Wei Po, based in Hong Kong.
They were arrested in June 1998 and sentenced by
Bingtuan Fourth Division Middle Court in August 1999.
The group appealed immediately to the Bingtuan Supreme
Court. When exactly the Bingtuan Supreme Court
announced it ruling was unclear.
News that the sentences had been upheld came less than
a week after Chinese authorities published a list of
Uyghur individuals and groups campaigning for
independence from China that Beijing designates
terrorist organizations. The Chinese authorities also
called for international cooperation against them.
“The Chinese government hopes that the international
community will support China’s efforts to combat
terrorism,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao
said. “And it calls on all governments, especially law
enforcement agencies, to take legal action against
those organizations which China has determined as
terrorist organizations, to ban their activities in
their territories, forbid support, financing and
harboring of these organizations and to freeze their
assets,” he said.
Liu said that China wanted to step up its
international cooperation on the fight against
terrorism, including cooperation through diplomatic,
intelligence, and military channels, but he stopped
short of saying whether Beijing would request the
extradition of those it had named terrorists.
China’s Ministry of Public Security on Monday named
four groups campaigning for self-rule in the
northwestern region of Xinjiang, which Uyghur
activists refer to as East Turkestan. One of the
organizations was the East Turkestan Information
Center (ETIC), which runs a prominent news Web site on
Uyghur affairs. The other three were named as the East
Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), East Turkestan
Liberation Organization (ETLO), and World Uyghur Youth
Congress (WUYC).
ETIC was accused of secretly sending information on
how to conduct violent terrorist activities back to a
network within the Chinese border, and claimed it was
using its information role as a facade for these
activities.
“The ETIC openly advertises religious extremist ideas
in articles it published, including ‘Is There Hope for
Our Independence’ and ‘To Win Independence or to
Die’,” Zhao said, adding that the organization had
called on Muslims in Chinese territory to employ
explosives and poisons in attacks on kindergartens and
schools of the ethnic Han population and government
establishments, and to attack Chinese armed forces.
The Germany-based ETIC English-language Web site
carried reports of China’s announcement, including a
reaction from its own spokesman. Dilshat Rashit denied
any involvement in violence. “China’s anti-terrorism
activities cannot be believed,” Rashit was quoted as
saying. “We hope that Western countries don’t fall
into the trap set by the Chinese government.”
Rashit said ETIC was being targeted “because we have
been exposing the negative side of the Chinese
government.” He said China often blames unsolved
crimes on the Uyghur ethnic group in Xinjiang.
Human rights groups and Western governments routinely
criticize China for its heavy-handed treatment of the
Uyghur population in Xinjiang.
In recent testimony aired by RFA’s Uyghur service
after his execution in China, Uyghur independence
activist Shirali detailed a litany of torture and
abuse at the hands of Chinese prison guards and
interrogators.
Shirali was accused of membership of ETIM, which was
blacklisted by the United States and the United
Nations as a terrorist organization after the Sept.
11, 2001 terror attacks.
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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