Criminal Justice

Code of ethics

The Aqsu Intermediate People's Court in Aqsu municipality, Aqsu district, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), sentenced Uyghur Web site administrator Tursunjan Hezim (Hézim) to seven years' imprisonment in July 2010, according to a March 6, 2011, Radio Free Asia (RFA) report. Authorities did not notify his family of the charges, according to a source cited in the report, but the sentence follows the detention and imprisonment of several other Web site administrators and staff (1, 2) after demonstrations and riots in the XUAR starting on July 5, 2009.

Officials Beat Chen Guangcheng and Yuan Weijing

Criminal Law Draft Amendment Under Review

According to Western news media, the Beijing High People's Court upheld the eight-year prison sentence of the American geologist Xue Feng on February 18, 2011, (Associated Press, 2/18/11; New York Times, 2/18/11; Wall Street Journal, 2/18/11). Chinese officials took Xue into custody in late 2007 and the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People's Court handed down its sentence in July 2010.

The Urumqi Intermediate People's Court sentenced Uyghur journalist and Web site administrator Memetjan (Memet, Muhemmetjan) Abdulla to life in prison on April 1, 2010, in connection to a translation he reportedly posted on the Internet and interviews he gave with foreign media in advance of the July 2009 demonstrations and riots in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), according to new information in December 20 and December 21, 2010, reports from Radio Free Asia (RFA).

Authorities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) presided over the area's first large-scale training class for ethnic minority lawyers from December 4 to December 6, 2010, stressing the lawyers' roles in meeting the region's political objectives, according to several reports. The event, convened by the Xinjiang Lawyers Association (XLA), marks the largest training class for ethnic minority lawyers in China, according to a December 10 report on the XLA Web site. Speaking in advance of the training class, XLA secretary-general Mao Li said the training would aim to strengthen "ideological and political construction," professional ethics, and professional work quality, according to a December 1, 2010, XLA report.