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Freedom, Independence and Democracy for East Turkistan ! |
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E-mail: etic@uygur.org |
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China is trying hard to tarnish the media credibility of Uyghur news sources
2009-08-20
China’s Central Television (CCTV) showed interviews with a young Uyghur man who confessed his email exchanges with various Uyhgur news services -- World Uyghur Congress, Radio Free Asia (RFA) and East Turkistan Information Center (ETIC) – in July, 2009. This is an attack against the credibility of Uyghur news sources in an effort to scapegoat them for instigating the deadly unrest in East Turkistan on July 5th, 2009. During the interview, the young Uyghur man presented supposed records of email exchanges with RFA reporter Shohret Hoshur, World Uyghur Congress’ Dolkun Eysa, and ETIC’s Abdujelil Karakash. The man told the CCTV that the three reporters used him as a contact -- asking him to go to Shaoguen city of Guangdong province of China to learn the details of Shaoguan killings in June 26. “I didn’t go Shaoguan, but I sent to them fake information without going there” said the man in the interview. The man confessed that he had sent a fictitious video about an Uyghur girl beaten and killed by a mob of Chinese. CCTV claims the made-up information was widely used by the World Uyghur Congress, RFA and ETIC – and further distributed to East Turkistan with an intention to instigate a violent Uyghur youth uprising on July 5th 2009 in Urumchi. The World Uyghur Congress, RFA Uyghur Service and ETIC have all denied using the fake information. “We always receive a bunch of information like this, and we believe most of them comes from the Chinese intelligence service. Usually, we do not try to make contact with the sender, unless the information was confirmed with our sources. We did not use the information came from this guy because we don’t know him, his information was not confirmed with our other sources and the video that he sent to us was fake,” said Abdujelil Karakash , the president of ETIC. “Usually we confirm the news with various sources, we never use information that came from single source. The number of death toll we learned about in the Shaoguan killings was 26 at first and it is very close to the number of death tolls that was reported by Jonathan, the reporter of Guardian newspaper in UK.” Jonathan Watts of the U.K. Guardian reported an interview with a Han Chinese man involved in the Shao guan killings in Guangdong province. The man disclosed that he personally “helped to kill seven or eight Uyghurs, battering them until they stopped screaming.” The man also proudly added, “I could say the death toll was at least around 30 at that time, why government report lies about death tolls and said only two?” Shohret Hoshur, the RFA Uyghur Service reporter, also stated that he did not use the information sent by the man interviewed by CCTV, “Usually we interview individuals in East Turkistan and rely on information they provided to us, only after the information is confirmed by other two sources from the same area. We also use information provided by the Chinese state media as well. I prepared four program about Shaoguan killings but non of these programs were used sources from Uyhgur individuals .the email address CCTV reported is not mine and Evidences that he had shown at CCTV is totally fake.” Dolkun Eysa from the World Uyghur Congress was surprised about these bogus evidence as well, “I have no idea about this person. We never had any contact with him. It is very clear that China is trying to harm our reputation through fabricating those kind of fake evidences.” It is not clear why this Uyghur man sent fabricated information to Western Uyghur news sources since he has no clear interests in doing so. Many Uyghur’s suspect the man might have been pressured by the Chinese government to get involved in CCTV’s forged programming. The frustrated Uyghur’s, along with many others in the world, are calling to question the credibility of Chinese media. The Chinese state media reported the clash left 200 people dead and 1700 injured. However, there is a very high possibility that number of people that were actually arrested, injured or died – far greater than what the Chinese media reported. The heavy-handed political oppression of Uyghurs in East Turkistan since China intrusively occupied the region – should not be ignored as the cause of the deadly ethnic clash between Han Chinese settlers and Uyghurs on July 5th. It has been more than one month and a half now, why has China suspended phone lines and internet service -- totally blocking the region and any means of communication -- if they are not hiding the truth?
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Copyright © www.uygur.org . All rights reserved 02.09.2009 13:54 A. Karakash |
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