| An electronic newsletter
Produced by the Eastern Turkistan Information Center No: 97 20 January 1999 In this issue: (1) TWO YOUNG UYGHURS SENTENCED TO DEATH.
(2) ROZIHEYT CELEBRATIONS.
(3) BOMBINGS SPATE PUTS GROUPS IN SPOTLIGHT
(4) DISSIDENT STUDENT EXPELLED FROM CHINESE UNIVERSITY, WON'T GET MASTER'S DEGREE
(5) CLINTON TELLS CHINA: STABILITY CANNOT BE BOUGHT BY CRUSHING FREEDOM
(6) CHINA JAILS ENGINEER IN FIRST INTERNET DISSENT CASE
(7) BUS BLAST LINKED TO WORKER UNREST
(8) CUSTOMS BLITZ YIELDS RECORD ARMS CACHE
(9) CHINESE WORKERS PROTEST OVER UNPAID WAGES-REPORT
(10) CHINA TARGETS ACCOUNTANTS, LAWYERS AND SPORTS STARS FOR TAXES
(11) ALREADY GRIM UNEMPLOYMENT SET TO WORSEN IN CHINA
(12) CHINA TO STEP UP ONLINE SUPERVISION AS INTERNET USERS GROW
(13) PROTESTS IN RURAL CHINA OVER ALLEGED VOTE-RIGGING, UNFAIR TAXES
(14) CHINA QUELLS ANTI-CORRUPTION PROTEST, ONE KILLED
(15) CHINESE POLICE SUPPRESS LARGE FARMERS' PROTEST
*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*= (1) TWO YOUNG UYGHURS SENTENCED TO DEATH.
According to the information obtained by telephone, Chinese authorities conducted a secret trial on 12 young Uyghurs in Qorghas, Ghulja province, on January 16, and convicted 2 of them to death, 10 others were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 10 to 18 years. The Uyghurs sentenced to death are:
The executions are postponed because of Roziheyt holiday. (2) ROZIHEYT CELEBRATIONS.
More than 300 Uyghurs gathered in the hall of the East Turkistan Research Center in Istanbul on the 20th of January to celebrate Roziheyt holiday. People, attended the celebration, had a chance to sample Uyghur cousin. Pr. Sultan Mehmut, Ablikim Baqi, mujahid Barat Hajim congratulated everybody with Roziheyt and gave speeches on hardship suffered by Uyghurs in China and called on struggle against communist yoke. Pr. Sajit Adali, a member of Turkey Basic Constitution Committee, participated the celebration, during which he gave a talk on present situation of East Turkistan with Seyit Taranqi, chairman of East Turkistan Cooperation Committee and first director assistant of East Turkistan National Center, and Hamit Kokturk, East Turkistan supervisory and disciplinary committee member. Also he shared his opinion on how Uyghur problems could be solved. Also, on January, 20 more than 300 Uyghurs gathered together to celebrate Roziheyt holiday in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. (3) BOMBINGS SPATE PUTS GROUPS IN SPOTLIGHT
Police are investigating whether Xinjiang separatists are behind a string of bombings and other possible terrorist activities across the mainland in the past week. Laid-off and disgruntled workers are also suspected of being involved in detonations and fires in several cities, leaving two people dead and scores injured. The hunt continued yesterday for those behind Sunday's bus explosion in Changsha, capital of Hunan province, which injured 37, four seriously. "We have now concluded that the explosion on the bus was a criminal action and not an accident," a city police spokesman said. He did not rule out a political motive behind the attack. "We are still investigating the case and have not detained any suspects." A security source in Beijing said the authorities had raised their guard against the spread of terrorism by Xinjiang "splittists". The source said: "The separatists have found new routes of smuggling explosives into China, including through the border between Vietnam and Yunnan province. "Moreover, they are spreading terrorist actions far beyond Xinjiang." Investigators were also looking for clues among the more militant underground labour organisations, the source said. Police said a fire in a car park at Shenyang's north railway station on Monday, which trapped 11 rail passengers underground for two hours, was also under investigation. A major police inquiry continued into an explosion at a bus stop in Zhuhai last Wednesday which injured four people. Reports said initial investigations indicated the device was a time bomb, possibly planted by triads from Macau. A bomb tore a bus apart in Liaoning province on January 6, killing 19 passengers. It was blamed on a bungled robbery attempt by a passenger, who is now in custody. (4) DISSIDENT STUDENT EXPELLED FROM CHINESE UNIVERSITY, WON'T GET MASTER'S DEGREE
BEIJING (CNN) -- A Chinese university has expelled a founding member of a budding opposition political party days before he could finish his master's degree, a rights group reported Wednesday. Wu Yilong's expulsion for his activism harked back to the crackdown on Tiananmen Square democracy campaigners in 1989 when universities ejected many student demonstrators. But the practice has been rarely used since then. China's Communist Party leaders are nervous about any acts that might galvanize public discontent in the run-up to this year's 10th anniversary of the democracy movement. In November, they began a sharp clampdown on dissent, targeting the China Democracy Party. Wu helped prominent dissident Wang Youcai launch the party in June. Wang was sentenced to 11 years in prison last month for subversion. His indictment mentioned Wu and fellow activist Zhu Zhengming, released earlier this month after nearly three weeks of detention. Security guards at Hangzhou University escorted Wu on Tuesday to the school's administrative offices, and officials read an order expelling him for being a China Democracy Party member, the Information Center reported. With the expulsion, Wu's permit to reside in Hangzhou, the prosperous capital of eastern Zhejiang province, was being canceled and he was told to return to his hometown in a county in impoverished neighboring Anhui province, the group said. The expulsion came three days before Wu was to defend his master's thesis in Chinese literature to a board of university scholars, the last step before obtaining the degree, the group said. Wu, 31, entered the master's program in September 1996, it added. (5) CLINTON TELLS CHINA: STABILITY CANNOT BE BOUGHT BY CRUSHING FREEDOM
WASHINGTON -- President Bill Clinton (pictured), reacting to a crackdown on dissent in China, told Beijing on Tuesday that stability could not be bought at the expense of freedom. But he also warned against isolating the communist state. Clinton included a brief comment on China in his State of the Union address to Congress, an annual occasion in which he sets out domestic policies and foreign policy priorities. Recalling his Beijing summit last June, the president said: "In China I said to the leaders and people what I say again tonight: Stability can no longer be bought at the expense of freedom." He added: "And I say again to the American people: It is important not to isolate China. The more we bring China into the world, the more the world will bring change and freedom to China." U.S. officials have said the crackdown, aimed at advocates of a multi-party system in the one-party state, could spoil a visit to Washington in April by Prime Minister Zhu Rongji (6) CHINA JAILS ENGINEER IN FIRST INTERNET DISSENT CASE
SHANGHAI -- China sentenced a man to two years in jail on Wednesday for trying to undermine the state in what is believed to be the first case of Internet dissent. Lin could have received the maximum of 15 years for charges of "inciting the overthrow of the state" Lin Hai, a 30-year-old computer engineer arrested last year, was accused of using the Internet to send 30,000 e-mail addresses to VIP Reference, a dissident publication based in the United States, a Hong Kong-based dissident group said on Wednesday. Court documents had called VIP Reference a hostile foreign organization. Lin ran a now closed software company that set up web sites and provided job searches for multinational companies. He was also stripped of his political rights for a year, a largely symbolic penalty, according to the Information Center of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China. A man who declined to give his name but identified himself as an uncle of the defendant told reporters waiting outside the Shanghai Number One Intermediate Court of the two-year jail term. A court official declined to comment on the sentence but said: "The verdict was scheduled to be handed down today." The case, first heard at a closed-door session on Dec. 4, has been ignored by the official Chinese media but it gained widespread attention from abroad, partly because of the explosive growth of the Internet. China already has more than two million Internet users and the total is expected to surge in coming years. The government has embraced the Internet but so have a number of dissident groups. VIP Reference, one of many dissident publications that have sprung up using the Internet, says it sends information to 250,000 e-mail accounts in China from various e-mail addresses in the United States. The group used Lin's data "to disseminate large numbers of articles aimed at inciting subversion of state power and the socialist system," court documents said. Lin's supporters say he frequently exchanged or bought e-mail addresses to build up a database for his online job search business. Lin's wife said on Wednesday that the sentence was too harsh. "The sentence was heavier than I had hoped for," said Xu Hong of the punishment handed down to her husband. "When he is innocent, even one year is too long a sentence," she said. Xu said she was allowed to attend the 20-minute court session but could not speak to her husband. Three other family members, in addition to the defendant, were also in the courtroom. Prior to the court session, Xu had not seen her husband since he was first detained on March 25, 1998. Internet users in China on Wednesday shrugged off Lin's sentencing, saying they believed attempts to monitor on-line activity would ultimately fail. "That's pretty sensitive stuff. It's not just about the Internet -- he must have known what he was doing," said a Chinese Internet expert at one of the capital's growing number of cybercafes. But Chinese net-surfers at the cybercafe, a warm and cheerful environment offering coffee, sandwiches and ranks of brand new PCs for hire, were unimpressed. "I don't know anything about it. I just come here for personal use," said a woman writing an e-mail at one of the terminals. The authorities have made great efforts to keep tabs on Internet use in a fledgling but rapidly-growing on-line community, requiring all service providers to connect through the state-owned ChinaNet. The "Great Firewall" manages to block access to sites considered undesirable by the authorities, like overseas news organizations and human rights groups, but there are loopholes for those who know how to exploit them. The Internet expert, who declined to be named, said he thought that regardless of the content of people's on-line activities, it would become harder and harder for the Chinese authorities to control Internet use. "To what sort of level are they going to be able to control it? It's a thing which has grown up between ordinary people across the world." he said, adding that anyone with a few hours' training could learn to access banned sites via a proxy server. But the officials, including Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, have also stressed in the last week that human rights is only one facet of a relationship which also has economic and strategic aspects. (7) BUS BLAST LINKED TO WORKER UNREST
A bus explosion in Hunan which injured 37 people is being linked to a wave of protests by peasants and workers in the province.Witnesses reported seeing a passenger set fire to a package before getting off the bus in Changsha shortly before it exploded on Sunday. Xinhua quoted Fu Yong, a 16-year-old student, saying he saw a man stub out a cigarette and throw it in a bag. "The young man looked like a farmer who was in the city looking for temporary work," said the boy."He smoked continuously as he travelled and when the bus approached a major stop, he put the dog-end into a sack he had with him, got off the bus and the explosion followed." Xu Zhejin, deputy director of Changsha Public Security Bureau, said the explosion was premeditated but did not name any suspects. Mr Xu said: "Our investigation at the scene, plus testimonies by witnesses, confirmed this is a premeditated act of sabotage." Police said the blast might have been caused by a crude sulphur and nitrogen bomb. The news agency said more than 20 of those injured remained in hospital last night including passenger Zhou Jing, who lost both her legs. Lu Siqing , of the Hong Kong-based Information Centre of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China said: "This could be linked to the peasant protests 10 days ago when hundreds were injured in clashes with police." Thousands of peasants from nearby Ningxiang county took part in a series of clashes this month involving up to a thousand police over demands for a reduction in illegal taxes. One man died and dozens were detained. Escalating violence by angry industrial workers may also have been behind the incident. Last year, there were more than 60 mass protests in Changsha and 20 cases of roads being blocked, the Hunan Economic Daily said. Hundreds of laid-off workers staged a demonstration and blocked a road bridge over Highway 207 on the national route through the province yesterday. The workers, from the Changde Cotton Mill in Changde city - 200km north of Changsha - were demanding help in getting three months' unpaid wages, said an employee at the factory. A 200-strong crowd had gathered to present a petition. The situation was peacefully resolved with no injuries or arrests, he said. (8) CUSTOMS BLITZ YIELDS RECORD ARMS CACHE
A crackdown by Customs officials in Xinjiang has yielded an attempt to smuggle weapons and ammunition from Kazakhstan, Xinhua reported yesterday. Among the 700 smuggling cases which had been cracked was the largest involving the discovery of military weapons being smuggled into China, the news agency said. The six pistols, a sub-machinegun and 2,000 rounds of ammunition were hidden in a truck and driven from Kazakhstan through the Korgas crossing into the troubled northwestern region last April. The news agency said Customs officers in Xinjiang had confiscated goods worth 30 million yuan (HK$27.9 million) last year. Korgas is close to the town of Yining, where riots broke out in February 1997 in favour of the creation of an independent Islamic state in the region. Official accounts said 10 people died and another 132 were injured when the protest against rule by Beijing turned into riots. A foreign-based Uygur group put the number of dead at more than 100 (9) CHINESE WORKERS PROTEST OVER UNPAID WAGES-REPORT
HONG KONG - A protest demonstration by 500 workers demanding unpaid wages brought traffic to a halt on a major bridge in central China's Hunan province on Monday, a Hong Kong rights group said. The demonstration brought more than 1,000 vehicles to a standstill on the bridge, which is a vital link to cities in Hubei province to the north, the Information Center of Human Rights & Democratic Movement in China said. The workers from a state-owned cotton plant demanded three months of wages they said were owed to them, besides calling for corruption in the plant's management to be stamped out. "A big number" of policemen had been sent to the scene but had not yet taken any action, the statement said. The protesters were among 3,000 workers owed three months' wages after being forced to take leave on low pay in recent years, the center said. They were told to take leave because they were under-employed at the plant, part of China's ailing state sector. China's politically sensitive programme to cut back and restructure state-owned enterprises has drawn flak from both old-guard leftist officials who say Beijing is scrapping socialism and an army of resentful workers who have not been paid back wages, severance pay or pensions. (10) CHINA TARGETS ACCOUNTANTS, LAWYERS AND SPORTS STARS FOR TAXES
BEIJING (AP) -- Chinese tax collectors will target high-earning accountants, lawyers and sports stars this year as the cash-strapped government tries to wrest more revenue from China's newly rich. The three groups join entertainers, stock speculators and landlords, who topped last year's list of tax targets, the official China Daily reported Sunday. Personal income tax collections grew 30 percent last year, the newspaper said. China is trying to revive slowing economic growth with a $1.2 trillion infrastructure spending program, and has tried to tighten loopholes in tax collections. Once considered unnecessary parasites of capitalism, accountants and lawyers now number about 170,000, up from almost zero before China launched its economic reforms 20 years ago, China Daily said in its Business Weekly edition. While sports stars are far less numerous, their incomes are even higher. The tax bureau is ordering professional sports clubs to turn over the tax revenue, the newspaper said. As an inducement, clubs will get a 2 percent commission on the revenues they collect. (11) ALREADY GRIM UNEMPLOYMENT SET TO WORSEN IN CHINA
BEIJING (AP) -- China's already grim unemployment situation will worsen this year with more layoffs from state firms and more youths entering the job market, the official China Daily reported Sunday. Almost 16 million urban residents will be unable to find work this year, the newspaper's Business Weekly edition reported. That's about 11 percent of the urban workforce, one of the highest levels of unemployment acknowledged by the official media. If the 130 million rural unemployed usually ignored by official statistics are counted, China's jobless rate would be above 17 percent. State factories are laying off millions of workers to cope with free-market reforms. Fearing potential unrest from the once pampered state workforce, Chinese leaders have launched a sharp crackdown on dissent and ordered local governments to allot enough money to care for those out of work. Mo Rong, an expert at a think tank under the Ministry of Labor and Social Security, advised the government to "take significant action" to stimulate job creation, the China Daily reported. Mo urged greater reliance on labor-intensive enterprises, building small businesses and promoting development of smaller cities and towns, the newspaper said. Because of the layoffs and the post-reform baby boom, a record 30 million Chinese will be looking for work this year, the newspaper said. Nearly a third will be young people entering the job market for the first time. (12) CHINA TO STEP UP ONLINE SUPERVISION AS INTERNET USERS GROW
A human rights group in China says the authorities are planning to step up on-line supervision of Internet users, with the rapid growth in their numbers over the last few months. The Information Centre of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China said the authorities planned to set up an on-line supervision and computer crime investigation unit in every city, in an attempt to maintain some control over the Internet. The group quoted official statistics from the information industry ministry as saying that the number of Internet accounts doubled in the second half of last year to more than two million.But it says the number of actual users could be almost three times as large. (13) PROTESTS IN RURAL CHINA OVER ALLEGED VOTE-RIGGING, UNFAIR TAXES
BEIJING (AP) -- Angry about high taxes and other grievances, a growing number of Chinese are protesting in several towns, human rights groups and state-run media said Saturday. Signs of rising urban and rural unrest are likely to have contributed to the recent decision by Communist Party leaders to initiate their toughest crackdown on political dissent in three years. A group of 12,688 farmers sued officials in Zizhou County in central Shanxi province who tried to collect taxes of more than one-quarter of their annual income, the newspaper Farmers Daily reported Saturday. According to a report by a Hong Kong-based human rights group, more than 1,000 villagers in Leibei village in Shanxi took to the streets twice this week accusing local officials of manipulating the results of a recent election for village officials. When about 100 police went to the village, demonstrators turned over six police cars, the Information Center of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China said. One protester was detained, and police were stationed in the village to prevent more trouble, the report said. There was no way to confirm the report immediately because government offices in the area were closed today. China allows direct elections for leaders in its 1 million villages, which are self-governing and are not part of the formal government system. The report did not provide details about the charges of vote rigging. The Information Center said a Jan. 4 protest over government taxes and fees by about 100 farmers from Guoyuan village, in eastern Jiangsu province, ended in violence, with more than 30 people injured. As of today, at least 10 people detained in connection with that demonstration were still in police custody, the report said. State-run media occasionally reports on disputes in rural areas over tax collection and other grievances. The Farmers Daily report said that the lawsuit in Zizhou County was filed after villagers were beaten as officials tried to extract inordinately high taxes after crops were devastated by drought in 1995. The lawsuit by farmers and current and retired government officials demanded punishment for officials who had detained and injured farmers, the report said. The group is appealing a court ruling that found some of the fees unfair but did not award damages or penalize abusive officials, it said. Chinese leaders have acknowledged growing rural discontent over taxes, fees and mandatory labor. Local officials often violate laws requiring that such taxes amount to no more than 5 percent of total household income. (14) CHINA QUELLS ANTI-CORRUPTION PROTEST, ONE KILLED
HONG KONG - One Chinese protester was killed and more than 100 were injured when paramilitary police moved in to quell a large anti-corruption demonstration in China's Hunan province, a Hong Kong-based rights group said. More than 3,000 villagers and farmers in Tao Lin village, Changsha, staged the protest on January 8 to denounce high taxes and corrupt government officials, the Information Center of Human Rights & Democratic Movement in China said on Friday. More than 1,000 paramilitary police sent in to control the crowd fired tear gas at the demonstrators. One canister hit a protester. It burnt his skin and the man bled to death, the center said. "More than 100 protesters were beaten and more than 100 arrested," it said. The rights center also said police had since released 80 of the villagers but 30 were still detained. Most of those injured have left hospital, it said. At least one person was killed when Chinese police and troops broke up a large protest in the centre of the county, according to a Hong Kong-based human rights organisation. More than 3,000 villagers and farmers gathered outside a government office in Hunan province to protest against corruption and high taxes, according to the Information Centre of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China. The protest, in the village of Tao Lin near the city of Changsha, is reported to have taken place on 8 January, but information has only recently become available. "The villagers tried to get into the township offices, so the police blocked them and fired tear gas. Some people were trampled by the crowd and the local police were not enough so they had to call in the People's Liberation Army," a spokeswoman for the organisation said. Around 1,000 police and soldiers were deployed against the protesters, and fired tear gas at the crowd, according to the human rights organisation. Over 100 demonstrators were injured and another 100 beaten by police, the human rights organisation said. It reported that a man bled to death after being hit by a tear gas cannister. The organisation said that police had since released 80 of the villagers, but 30 were still detained. Most of those injured have left hospital, the information centre added. Chinese officials are reported to have said several thousand villagers took part in an illegal gathering and that some were arrested. Agence France Presse reports that China's Communist Party elite put the troubled countryside at the top of its agenda at a meeting in October, when party leader Jiang Zemin warned that taxes for farmers must be reduced. Since then, Premier Zhu Rongji has publicly unveiled corruption in China's grain purchase and distribution sector. (15) CHINESE POLICE SUPPRESS LARGE FARMERS' PROTEST
BEIJING (AP) -- Paramilitary police used tear gas and clubs to break up a protest of 3,000 farmers in southern China, killing one person and injuring more than 100, a human rights group said Friday. About 1,000 police broke up the protest over high local taxes and corruption on Jan. 8 in Daolin village, near Changsha, the capital of Hunan province, the Information Center of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China reported. One tear gas canister exploded on a protester and he bled to death, the Hong Kong-based group said in a statement. Police beat more than 100 people and detained about 110 people. The demonstration erupted after police arrested the organizers of the "Lower Taxes and Save the Country Society," a group formed by about 100 farmers late last year. Word spread quickly of the arrests, and farmers in the area rushed to try to thwart the police. The next day, angry farmers were still gathering, and about 500 soldiers were sent in to help disperse them, the group said. Local and provincial government officials dismissed queries about the protest. All said they had never heard of it. In the past week, about 200 villagers have protested three times in front of the provincial government's offices, calling for punishment for those who killed the protester. Authorities have given the protester's family $7,000 and released 80 people, but 30 remain in custody, the Information Center reported. Prepared by: *=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*= The World Uyghur Network News electronic newsletter is produced by the Eastern Turkistan Information Center (ETIC) in cooperation with the Taklamakan Uighur Human Rights Association (USA), and is devoted to the current political, cultural and economic developments in Eastern Turkistan and to the Uyghur people related issues. Eastern Turkistan (Sherqiy Turkistan in Uyghur) is a name used by the indigenous people of the region for their motherland located in what is at present the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of the People's Republic China. The World Uyghur Network News brings information on situation in Eastern Turkistan from the Uyghur and other sources to the attention of the international community. *=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*= EASTERN TURKISTAN INFORMATION CENTER |