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Developments in 2003
Amnesty, Tue 6 Apr 2004
China
Limited and incomplete records available to Amnesty
International at the end of the year indicated that at
least 726 people were executed. The Chinese government
keeps national statistics on death sentences and
executions secret; the true figures are believed to be
much higher.
In January Lobsang Dhondup, a Tibetan from Sichuan
province, was executed after being convicted in an
unfair trial of "causing explosions" and other
offences. The authorities stated that his trial was
held in secret because it involved "state secrets",
without providing further clarification. He was
executed hours after his sentence was passed, without
his case being referred to the Supreme Court as
required under Chinese law, and despite official
assurances to the USA and the European Union (EU) that
his case would receive a "lengthy" review.
In October Shaheer Ali, an ethnic Uighur from the
Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) in northwest
China, was reportedly executed after being forcibly
returned in January 2002 to China from Nepal, where he
had sought asylum. He was sentenced to death at a
secret trial in March 2003 after being convicted of
offences including "separatism and organizing and
leading a terrorist organization."
Shaheer Ali was among several Uighurs recognized as
refugees by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. In
radio interviews while in Nepal, he claimed to belong
to a non-militant organization called the East
Turkestan Islamic Reform Party and to have been
tortured while imprisoned in Guma (Pishan) in the XUAR
in 1994.
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