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China Claims Victory against Muslim Rebels
From: Uyghurs@aol.com and From: AKoknar@aol.com
January 15, 2001 China Claims Victory against Muslim Rebels China claims
to have smashed an armed Muslim separatist group responsible for a wave of
terrorist attacks in the Autonomous Province of Xinjiang. According to a report
in the government-run People's Court Daily, a group of Uighur separatists was
recently tried at a court in the town of Korla in
Xinjiang. The group's leader, Alerken Abula, was sentenced to death. The
group was reportedly linked to the Eastern Turkestan Islamic Party of God,
established in 1993 to establish a separate Uighur state in Xinjiang. The paper
reported that the group recruited over a hundred members from all over the
province and acquired explosives, weapons and a printing press.
Chinese authorities said the group was behind "a large number of terrorist
actions." According to the official Chinese news agency, police in Xinjiang
arrested an
unspecified number of members of the separatist group and uncovered a hit-list
of 32 mosque officials who were singled out for their allegiance to the central
government. Xinjiang unrest continues
The Uighurs of China's restive Xinjiang province are a Turkic people who claim
descent from Genghis Khan, speak a Turkic language, and follow the Muslim
religion. Once citizens of an independent "Republic of Eastern Turkistan,"
the Uighurs situneasily under Chinese rule. The province has seen an
upsurge in national separatist aspirations in recent years. China's attempts to
quell the unrest have been met with riots, demonstrations and--on at least four
occassions--fatal bombings of public buses. Uighur separatists are blamed for a
spate of bus bombings in Xinjiang
in which tens of people were killed, as well as attacks on police stations and
on Chinese settlers in the region. Last year two bombs on buses in Beijing were
claimed by a Uighur separatist group. Executions and allegations of
torture Amnesty International recently reported that China had executed two men
accused of terrorist offenses in Xinjiang after what the human rights
organization termed "grossly unfair judicial proceedings based on
confessions extracted through torture." Jur'at Nuri, 27, and
Abduhalik Abdureshet, 24, were sentenced to death in July 1999 on charges
of "splittism" and "illegally carrying and keeping arms,
ammunition and explosives," Amnesty reported. On 9 January, the two were
executed in the town of Yining. Relatives of the two men, who had been given no
information about their fate for a year, were allowed to see them briefly
before the executions. According to the Amnesty report, the two men were among
11 people detained in April 1998 in Yining after six Uighur youths were killed
in a clash with security forces. Court officials in Yining denied any executions
had taken
place or even that the two men had been in custody. Amnesty also reported that a
Uighur exile organization based in Germany, The East Turkestan Information
Center, reported in October that a Uighur activist had been tortured to death by
officials in Chapchal prison. In a statement,
the organization claimed that Abdulhelil Abdumijit was buried in a shallow
grave, and that his relatives were denied access to his grave. Previous
unconfirmed reports from Uighur exile sources had claimed that
Abdulhelil Abdumijit had been tried at the end of 1999 or early 2000, and
sentenced to death, together with two other defendants. Sources: South
China Morning Post, Amnesty International, Agence France Press
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