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China arrests foreign militants in
restive west
By Emma Graham-Harrison
URUMQI, China (Reuters) - China has arrested 19
foreigners on terrorism charges in its restive
northwestern region of Xinjiang and told the children
of a freed dissident they cannot go abroad, a regional
leader said on Tuesday.
Beijing has waged a relentless campaign against
militants from Xinjiang's Uighur minority who have
struggled for decades to make the region an
independent state called East Turkestan and whom China
has labeled foreign-backed terrorists.
"This year, we have arrested 19 people from abroad who
were sent to Xinjiang for violent sabotage," Xinjiang
Communist Party Secretary Wang Lequan told reporters
at a news conference in the region's capital, Urumqi.
"When they entered the territory of Xinjiang, we
immediately caught them," Wang said without
elaborating.
In August, China charged Uighur dissident Rebiya
Kadeer, now living in exile in the United States, with
conspiring to sabotage celebrations marking the 50th
anniversary of the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region
on October 1. She was also charged with evading taxes,
committing fraud and running up heavy debts.
The government had told Kadeer's children they could
not leave the country until the family's debts were
paid, Wang said.
"We asked them not to leave the country before the
present issue is resolved because if they settle
outside China, who shall return their evaded taxes?"
he said.
China freed businesswoman Kadeer in March, after
almost six years in jail for providing state secrets
abroad, just ahead of a visit by U.S. Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice.
In May, Washington raised concerns about the safety of
Kadeer's friends and family when a rights group said
police had detained and beaten some of her associates
and tried to arrest her son.
"We haven't put any limits on their (her children's')
personal freedom," Wang said.
Many of the Turkic-speaking Uighurs favor greater
autonomy from Beijing and complain of inequities under
rule by Han Chinese.
Wang acknowledged there was an ethnic income gap in
Xinjiang, where Uighurs made up 45 to 46 percent of
the population and Han around 38 percent.
"That Uighurs' incomes are lower than Hans' incomes is
true," he said.
The party secretary, who sits on China's all-powerful
politburo, also confirmed that Mutalifu Yusufu, former
mayor of the Xinjiang city of Korla, killed himself in
late September while under investigation for
corruption.
Yusufu, his wife and other relatives, skimmed millions
of yuan in a chemical fertilizer scam, Wang said,
noting a "complete conclusion" on the case had yet to
be made.
"There is one thing for sure, he was involved in his
wife's corruption and then committed suicide," he said.
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