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Excerpts from Amnesty International Report 2001 on persecutions of Uighurs in China and forced deportations from Kazakstan and Kyrgyzstan
Covering events from January - December 2000
CHINA
In the autonomous regions of Xinjiang and Tibet, religious freedom continued to be severely restricted and people suspected of nationalist activities or sympathies were subjected to particularly harsh repression.
Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR)
Executions of Uighur political prisoners labelled as ''separatists'' or ''terrorists'' by the authorities continued. Most were passed after secret or summary trials where convictions were based on confessions extracted under torture. The XUAR was the only region of China where political prisoners were known to have been executed in recent years. The pattern of gross human rights violations reported from the XUAR included prolonged arbitrary incommunicado detention, torture and ill-treatment and unfair trials. The targets of abuses were mainly Uighurs, the majority ethnic group among the predominantly Muslim local population. There was an increase in religious persecution by the authorities. Islamic groups and prominent individuals in the Muslim community were subjected to repressive and often brutal measures. Thousands remained imprisoned.
Rebiya Kadeer, an Uighur businesswoman and mother of 10, was sentenced to eight years' imprisonment after a secret trial in March. She was charged with ''providing secret information across the border'' for sending copies of publicly available newspapers
to her husband, a former political prisoner living abroad. Rebiya Kadeer, a prominent campaigner promoting Uighur women's rights, had been detained in August 1999 in Urumqi, capital of the XUAR, while on her way to meet a visitor from the US Congressional Research Service. Her appeal against her sentence was rejected in November by the XUAR High People's Court, following which she was transferred to the Baijiahu prison in Urumqi. She was reported to be in poor health.
KAZAKSTAN
Kazakstan continued to come under pressure from China to forcibly return ethnic Uighurs from Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR).
Forcible deportations
The murder of two policemen and a subsequent shoot-out in Almaty in September between Kazak police and alleged ethnic Uighur separatists heightened concerns that China was increasing its pressure on the Kazak authorities to forcibly return ethnic Uighurs to China, where they were at risk of human rights violations.
It was feared that Hemit Memet and Ilyas Zordun were at imminent risk of execution. They had been deported from Kazakstan to China in February 1999 and imprisoned in XUAR. Reports were received that they had been executed in August 1999. However, unofficial sources reported in late 1999 that Hemit Memet and Ilyas Zordun were believed to be still in secret detention.
KYRGYZSTAN
Forcible deportation
Jelil Turdi, an ethnic Uighur from the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) in the People's Republic of China was reported to have been forcibly deported in April to China where he was at risk of torture and possibly the death penalty for alleged ''separatist'' activities. He was first detained by Kyrgyz police in early March 2000, reportedly for having an illegal residence permit, then rearrested a few weeks later after the Chinese embassy in Kyrgyzstan claimed that his Chinese documents were false. According to unofficial sources, however, Chinese security officers told their Kyrgyz counterparts that Jelil Turdi was wanted in China for involvement in a nationalist opposition group. The Chinese officers reportedly took part in Jelil Turdi's interrogation, during which he was allegedly tortured. Jelil Turdi was denied the opportunity to challenge the decision to deport him before a court in
Kyrgyzstan.
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ETIC REPORT 2000 
