China jails 20 Uighur-Muslims on terrorism, separatism charges in Xinjiang | DAWN.COM
BEIJING: Courts in Chinas restive far western region of Xinjiang have jailed 20 people for up to 15 years on charges of terrorism and separatism, state media said on Thursday, as the heavily Muslim area marks the fasting month of Ramazan. The three courts in the cities of Urumqi,
Kashgar and Aksu also leveled
charges of making explosive devices,
promoting religious extremism and
plotting holy war, Communist Party
mouthpiece the Peoples Daily said on its website (
ÈËÃñÍø). While it did not give the ethnicity of
those sentenced, judging from their
names they were all Uighurs, a Muslim
Turkic-speaking people who call
Xinjiang home, many of whom chafe at
Beijings rule and restrictions on their religion and culture.
A vast amount of evidence shows
that the accused criminals carried out a
lot of preparatory work in planning
violent terror activities and set up a
formal terror organisation, the report
said. They bought, produced and copied
mobile transmitters, discs and
publications which promoted
separatism, religious extremism and
violent terror and proactively spread
them around, it added.
Some members of the terror
organisation made explosives and
carried out test explosions. China blamed violence in Xinjiang
strategically located on the borders of
Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and
Central Asia on Islamic separatists
who want to establish an independent
state of East Turkestan. Some Chinese officials have blamed
attacks on Muslim militants trained in
Pakistan. But many rights groups say China
overstates the threat to justify its tight
grip on the region. Dilxat Raxit, spokesman for the exiled
World Uyghur Congress, said the
government had politicised the case
and used terrorism as an excuse to
punish Uighurs who dont agree with
the system. The aim is to terrorise Uighurs into
abandoning their rights, he said in an
emailed statement. Beijing has shown no sign of relaxing
its control in Xinjiang, a vast swathe of
territory accounting for one-sixth of
Chinas land mass which holds rich oil,
gas and coal deposits. In July 2009, regional capital Urumqi
was rocked by violence between
majority Han Chinese and minority
Uighurs that killed nearly 200 people. Since the unrest, China has turned its
attention to boosting development in
Xinjiang and providing greater job
opportunities, especially for Uighurs,
to try to address some of the root
causes of the violence.
