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China Convicts 50 to
Death in Xinjiang
13 Sep 2004
John Ruwitch
URUMQI, China, Sept 13 (Reuters) - China has sentenced
more than 50 people to death this year in the western
region of Xinjiang in what the government depicts as a
protracted battle against foreign-backed separatists.
The Communist Party leader of the predominantly Muslim
region, Wang Lequan, said on Monday that despite the
tough stance, China saw international "terrorist"
forces as gaining ground and vowed no let-up from
Beijing in the battle.
"Due to the fact that the activities of international
terrorist forces are rampant, we believe our fight
against the crime of violent terrorists will continue
for a long time to come," Wang told reporters visiting
the region.
Many overseas rights groups criticise China for using
the global war on terror, launched after the Sept. 11,
2001, attacks on the United States, as a pretext to
crack down on Turkic-speaking ethnic Uighurs in
Xinjiang who want more autonomy from Beijing, though
not necessarily independence.
The government had cracked 22 groups involved in
separatist and terrorist activities and meted out the
50 death sentences in the first eight months of the
year, Wang said.
But none of those sentenced to death had yet been
executed, Wang said without explaining.
"Our efforts will exist as long as there are terrorist
crimes," Wang said.
Some Uighurs do seek to turn Xinjiang into an
independent homeland, called East Turkestan, and in
the 1990s they were blamed for a rash of bombings and
assassinations in China.
Since the early 1990s, however, Beijing has cranked up
efforts in the region -- and cooperation with
neighbouring governments -- to snuff out any
separatist designs.
China has also fostered closer ties with Russia and
the former Soviet Central Asian states of Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan through the
Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, which was
established in 2001 to fight terrorism.
Beijing has said pro-East Turkestan groups in Xinjiang
-- which borders Pakistan and Afghanistan as well as
several other Muslim-majority Central Asian nations --
have direct links to the now-deposed Taliban in
Afghanistan and the al Qaeda network of Osama bin
Laden.
Amnesty International said in a July report that China
had detained thousands of Muslims without due process
and sentenced them to labour camps in the past three
years in the name of the war on terror.
"It's not true," Wang said. "Our country strictly
implements the law."
Wang also rejected criticism from abroad that
Beijing's crackdown has been, to some extent, racially
motivated.
"In Xinjiang's efforts to fight violent terrorist
crimes and separatism since the 1990s, there has been
no racial or ethnic problem," he said.
"Most of the ethnic splittists are Uighurs, that is
not false, but they do not represent the Uighurs," he
said.
Wang gave no hint of any let-up in China's crackdown,
pointing to the 53-hour siege at a Russian school
which ended in the deaths of at least 368 people and
has been blamed on Chechen rebels.
"Terrorist events are becoming more and more serious,
more and more tragic," he said.
"It wouldn't be right to not fight." .
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