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 China sentences Uighur
teacher to nine years for leaking "state secrets"
BEIJING, July 31 (AFP) - A court in northwest China's
Xinjiang region has sentenced a Muslim school teacher
to nine years' jail for reporting on its suppression
of ethnic Uighur Muslims, an overseas Uighur rights
group said Saturday.
Abdulghani Memetemin, 40, was sentenced on 18 charges,
including leaking state secrets, Dilxat Raxit, a
spokesman for the Germany-based World Uighur Congress
(WUC) told AFP.
Since 1999, Memetemin had provided information to the
Germany-based East Turkestan Information Center (ETIC)
-- a group affiliated with the WUC and run by exiled
Uighurs to publicize human rights abuses against
Uighurs in China.
Memetemin was sentenced on June 24, 2003 in a secret
trial by the Intermediate People's Court in the city
of Kashgar, but due to the secrecy involved and the
difficulty in obtaining information, the WUC did not
learn of the judgement until this month, Raxit said
"Abdulghani Memetemin is accused of threatening the
integrity of the state by separatist means, violating
state secrets, and sending them outside the country,"
according to a copy of the Kashgar court judgement
obtained by the WUC.
Information Memetemin provided to the ETIC included
China's stepped up military exercises against
separatists in Xinjiang following the September 11,
2001 terrorist attacks in the United States;
authorities' confiscation and burning of Uighur
history books and orders for Uighur women to stop
wearing head scarves.
Memetemin, whom ETIC said was a volunteer reporter,
also informed the ETIC about the detention of a
well-known Muslim cleric, and discrimination by
employers against Uighurs for adhering to Islamic
religious practices. He also reported about Uighur
farmers forced to work for free for three months to
build government projects, school children forbidden
from adhering to Muslim fasting, and difficulties
faced by laidoff workers.
"We strongly condemn the sentencing and urge the
Chinese government to release him. He was not involved
in any separatist activities," Raxit said Saturday.
Memetemin did not have access to any state secrets,
Raxit said. The information he provided was public
information also reported by Chinese-controlled media
or seen by the public on the streets, he said.
"The information he gave to us helped inform the
outside world about what was happening in Xinjiang. It
was all open information, but his work was necessary
because of the fact that the Chinese government
refuses to let foreign reporters report freely in
Xinjiang," Raxit said. Raxit said the ETIC never paid
Memetemin.
"He felt it was his moral duty to let people know what
was happening to Uighurs," Raxit said.
Kashgar officials refused to comment on the case. "No
comment," said Guo Zhen, an official at the Kashgar
police's state security division, before haning up the
phone.
China has branded the ETIC and WUC terrorist groups.
Since the September 11 attacks, it has stepped up its
crackdown against anyone or any activities it
considers threatens its rule in the restive Xinjiang
region, which is heavily Muslim populated and has seen
violence between Chinese and Uighur separatists or
Uighurs simply unhappy with China's tight restrictions.
cs/mtp
China-Xinjiang-media-rights
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