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China jails Muslim
author
Christopher Bodeen in ShanghaiJune 29, 2005
15:28 IST
A Chinese Muslim author has been sentenced to 10 years
in prison after authorities deemed one of his stories
subversive, a US-based broadcaster reported Wednesday.
Nurmuhemmet Yasin, a member of the Uighur ethnic group,
was arrested last November and sentenced after a
closed trial in February, Radio Free Asia reported. It
said he was sent May 19 to the No. 1 Prison in Urumqi,
capital of the Muslim Xinjiang region in China's
northwest.
A man who answered the telephone at the prison's
general office said it was "impossible to confirm the
names of prisoners." The man hung up when asked for
his name.
Yasin's arrest followed the publication last year of
his Uighur-language short story "Wild Pigeon" in a
literary journal, Radio Free Asia said. It said the
story is about a bird trapped by humans that commits
suicide in captivity -- apparently seen by authorities
as an allegory for Uighurs under Chinese rule.
An overseas pro-independence group, the East Turkistan
Information Center, announced Yasin's arrest earlier
this year and said it was part of a broader crackdown
on Uighur intellectuals.
East Turkistan is the name many Uighurs use for
Xinjiang.
'China is the cruellest country in the world'
China's 8 million Uighurs are a Turkish people more
closely related to ethnic groups of the neighboring
Central Asian states than to the Han majority.
The communist government has been trying for years to
crush pro-independence sentiment in Xinjiang.
Critics say even peaceful expressions of opposition to
Chinese rule can result in long prison sentences or
execution.
Radio Free Asia said Yasin was born in 1970 and is
married with two young sons. Other groups said he was
born in 1974. His writings were first published when
he was 12 and have appeared in a score of magazines
and newspapers, the reports said.
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