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Human Rights violence in Eastern Turkistan after
Sep.11
Ladies and Gentlemen:
First I would like to thanks the Amnesty International
for inviting me to this meeting.
Because of the limitation of time, I would just give a
short report about the situation in Eastern Turkistan
since Sep.11, last year, and since the Eastern
Turkistan Islamic movement was listed in to the
“terrorist groups” by U.S. and the United Nation in
this August and September.
After Sep.11, the Chinese government claimed that the
Uyghurs who are Involved in Eastern Turkistan movement
are terrorists. I would like to emphasize that we were
not surprised to hear it: because in 1933, China gave
the name ”Bandits” to those who established Eastern
Turkistan Islamic Republic; in 1944, gave the name “6
thieves” to those who established Eastern Turkistan
Republic. And from 1950-2000, China labelled the
Uyghur learners and scholars “Trouble makers” “Capitalist”,
“Nationalist”, “Pan Islam, Pan Turk”, and “separatists”.
Since 1990, especially after the “Gulja event” they
labelled Uyghurs “Separatists” “illegal religious
Activators”. And after Sep.11, they immediately called
us “Terrorists”. They did all these just because of
the reason that they wanted to hide its own state
terrorism, and they wanted to strengthen the pressure
to Uyghur people by taking the advantages of Sep.11.
So, we were not surprised of what China said and did.
But we are surprised of how U.S., United Nation and
all our neighbour countries treated us.
Before Eastern Turkistan was not well known to the
western world for several decades, because of the
China’s close policy, but now, at the time when the
world technology highly developed and at the time when
China is being blamed and reported by the Amnesty
International for it s ignoring of human rights. We
could not understand why the Uyghur’s tragedy still
could not attract the world’s attention? and in
opposite, why China has been given even more
opportunities to kill Uyghurs.
Let’s see what happened in Eastern Turkistan since
Sep.11 last year:
Political situation:
According to the information that we got direct from
Eastern Turkistan and report from East Turkistan
Information Centre, from Feb.4 Gulja Event in 1997
to2000, the Chinese government executed more than 300
political prisoners. About this, the Amnesty
International gave the similar report.
Soon after Sep.11, the Chinese government took the
advantage of the event, carried out a series of “hard
strike” movements in Eastern Turkistan. With in one
year arrested more than 9000 people and sentenced more
than 50 Uyghurs, so called “terrorists”, to death.
(All these report are from the Eastern Turkistan
Information Centre)
In Sep.24, 2001, in Shayar, an open court was held, Mr.
Erkin Talip was sentenced to death and other 8 people
were sentenced to put into prison for different period
of time.
In Sep.25, 2001, in Kashkar open court, 48 people were
sentenced to put in to prison for different period of
time.
In oct.15, 2001, in Gulja, 6 people, including
Abduhelil Abdumijit, Abdumijit Abdurahman were
sentenced to death.
In Oct. 16, 2001, in Lop of Hotan, Yasin Iskender was
sentenced to death at the court.
In Oct 2001, in Aksu, 43 people were given sentences
and one of them was given death penalty.
In Oct, 23,2001, in Hotan, Metrozi Mettohti was given
death penalty; the other 5 including Abdulkeyim,
Memeteimin were sentenced to prison.
In April, 2002, Hashim Haji, the head of Public
Security Bureau (Gong an ting) in “Xinjiang Uyghur
Autonomous Region”, announced the so called “Great
achievement”, they got in the hard strike movement in
his report as the following:
In Jan 2002, 117 Uyghurs were arrested in Turpan.
In the last week of March 2002, more than 800
individuals from Hotan’s 7 county were arrested.
In March 28, 2002, 52 Uyghurs were arrested in Kashkar.
In April 4, 2002, again in Kashkar, more than 100
Uyghurs were arrested.
In April 2002, more than 60 Uyghurs were arrested in
Kumul.
Besides what mentioned in Hashim Haji’s report, 150
Uyghurs were arrested as the “National Separatists”
according to Urumqi Evening paper, 27 Oct, 2001 121
Uyghurs were arrested as “terrorists” according to
Xinjiang Newspaper, 14. Nov 2001 30 Uyghurs were
arrested according to the Aksu Newspaper 10 Uyghurs
were arrested according to the Tarim Newspaper
181 Uygurs were arrested according to the Xinjiang Net
web
All these numbers people who had been arrested were
reported in China’s official press. Although they are
far from the reality, still react the current
situation in Eastern Turkistan.
After the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement was listed
in to the “terrorist group”, by U.S. and U.N., the
Chinese government became more evil than ever before
in Arresting and killing Uyghur People illegally.
From Sep.16 to Sep.17, 2002, with in two days, in
Ghulja, the Chinese Government arrested 44 Uyghurs who
were claimed to link with Eastern Turkistan Islamic
Party.
In Sep, 13, 2002, 9 Uyghurs were arrested in Atush.
These were the reports from just the two counties of
Eastern Turkistan, in the other places like Hotan,
Aksu, Kashgar the dangerous areas in the eyes of
Chinese government; number of the arrested Uyghurs are
more than these.
Religion Situation:
After Sep.11, in order to control the religion in
Eastern Turkistan, the Chinese government made some
new rules such as: employers, communist party members,
workers, teachers, students and young people under the
age of 18 are prohibited to go to mosque, even not
allowed to pray. Every Friday, policemen were sent to
mosque to keep watch to the praying activities of the
people. If someone from the other neighbourhoods came
to pray in the mosque in a certain area, this person
would be questioned as a suspicious one and be
punished heavily.
In Oct.9, 2001, in Hotan city, Dong mosque which has a
long period time of history were destroyed by the
Chinese government without caring the people’s
disagreement and they said they destroyed in just
because it was too close to the elementary school.
In 15, April 2002, several mosques like Hanti Mosque,
Yengibagh Mosque and Usla Mosque were all destroyed at
the same time.
Culture and Education:
After Sep.11, the Chinese government has made a strict,
limitation, to Uyghur people in their culture and
education. The government made a rule that the
anti-terrorism should be related with the education
and they started an anti-scholars movement in all
parts of Eastern Turkistan.
In New Years ceremony in 2001, at a concert in Urumqi
city, the Uyghur poet Tursunjan Emet was arrested
because of the poem that he read at the concert, which
the Chinese government thought it spread the
separatism idea.
Besides this, under the call to clear all the “poison
books”, they started “book burning” movement.
in May. 24, 2002, Only in Kashkar, they burned more
than 10,000 books. Actually, except some of the books
published abroad, most of the books that they burned
were published by official press of the Chinese
authorities. Even Koran of Uyghur languages were
burned.
Since Sep, 1, 2002, In Xinjiang University, the Chinese
government prohibited teaching in the mother tongue to
the Uyghur students.
XinjiangUniversity is the biggest university in Eastern
Turkistan, there are 15,000 students in it and among
them 55% are Han Chinese, and 45% are minority
students like Uygurs, kazaks, Kirgiz and so on.
Abandon the Uyghur language in this university brought
not only a great strike to the Uyghur culture, but
also the problem of unemployment of the most Uyghur
teachers and other Uyghur staffs.
Now, on the behalf of all the Uyghur people, I would
like to call upon democratic countries and the
International human right Organizations to pay much
more attention to the human rights violence in Eastern
Turkistan.
I would like to call up all the Democratic countries
and human right organizations to save the one nation
and to save one culture from being disappeared in this
world.
At the same time, I hope the world to judge the
Eastern Turkistan movements fairly and force the
Chinese government to let the Uyghurs carry on the
freedom movement in a peaceful way.
At last, I would like to thank the Amnesty
International for their close attention to the Human
rights situation in Eastern Turkistan, and I would
like to take the chance to thank Ms. Arlette Laduguie
and Mr. Mark.
Thanks for your attentions
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