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18,000 Uygurs arrested for 'security
threats' last year
REUTERS in Beijing
More than 18,000 people were arrested for threatening
national
security in the mainly Muslim region of Xinjiang last
year, a
newspaper reported yesterday.
Uygur activists, who Beijing says are terrorists
trying to split the
mainland, have been struggling for decades for
self-determination in
Xinjiang.
The official Xinjiang Daily put the number of people
arrested in the
region for endangering state security - considered as
everything
from terrorism to talking to foreign reporters - at
18,227.
"Uygurs are scared. They can be arrested even for a
slip of the
tongue," said Dilxat Raxit, of the World Uygur
Congress, a
German-based organisation seeking more freedom for the
region they
call East Turkestan.
"We have no rights. But we are also human beings," he
said, adding
that even more people - all Uygurs - were probably
detained by
police and not formally charged.
Human rights abuses in Xinjiang were worsening and the
world did not
pay enough attention, Mr Raxit said.
"If anything, the human rights situation in Xinjiang
is getting
worse. The world is not putting enough pressure on
China because
they are scared of affecting economic ties," he said.
Human Rights Watch, a New York-based group that
campaigns against
political repression and torture, said in its annual
worldwide
report that China remained beset by widespread rights
abuses.
Xinjiang faced tightening repression, it said. Beijing
lashed out at the report, saying the claims came out
of "thin air" and were entirely politically motivated.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan said he had not
bothered to
read the report.
Mr Raxit said: "If China thinks the report is wrong,
it should let
international human rights groups into Xinjiang to
investigate
without limits.">
In October, China marked the 50th anniversary of the
establishment
of Xinjiang as an autonomous region.
Beijing says its system of autonomous regions for
ethnic minorities
allows them a degree of self-governance, but activists
say it is a
means for the authorities to maintain tight control.
The Public Security Ministry last year labelled East
Turkestan
forces the main terrorist threat to China. It said
more than 260
terrorist acts had been committed in Xinjiang in the
past two
decades, killing 160 and wounding 440.
Among the most prominent Uygur activists is Rebiya
Kadeer, a
businesswoman freed from detention in March and exiled
to the US
after serving years in prison on charges of providing
state secrets
abroad.
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