Ethnic Minority Rights

Xinjiang police confiscated the passports of a group of Uighur pilgrims seeking to cross the border by bus at Qonjirap in Xinjiang on August 25, according to the East Turkistan Information Center (in Uighur). The group had planned to spend the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in Mecca.

According to the Xinjiang Daily, 947 government workers from outside the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region began three-year assignments in Xinjiang in mid-2005. Wang Encheng, director of the Central Personnel Department, reported that this fifth class of "Assist Xinjiang" cadres is the largest to date, with 130 more officials than were assigned in 2004. He noted that a "new era in the 'Assist Xinjiang Cadre Policy' has begun," with the new arrivals assuming a larger number of first secretary Party posts at the county level. The Personnel Department will place the cadres primarily in southern Xinjiang, where over 95 percent of the population is Uighur, though new positions also have been added in the north.

The Munich-based East Turkestan Information Center (ETIC)has released the names of several Uighurs who have been unlawfully searched and beaten by Xinjiang police this summer (in Uighur). The report, which lists the badge numbers of the offending officers, recounts how police beat several Uighurs for questioning the illegal searches. According to the report, police searched Uighur businessman Abdu Semet Abliz without cause and released him only after ordering him to shave his beard and mustache. Many Muslims wear beards as a sign of their faith.

Police arrested seven members of an East Turkestan separatist organization in Hetian prefecture in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, according an to August 30 article in the Hong Kong daily Wen Wei Po. The article also reports that since January, Hetian authorities have disbanded six "illegal underground" religious schools and confiscated unauthorized religious books, periodicals, and audio and video tapes. Xinjiang regulations require that all materials with religious content receive approval from the China Islamic Association before publication or dissemination.

Manfred Nowak, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture, is scheduled to visit China from November 21 to December 2, 2005, according to an August 22 United Nations press release. Nowak will visit government officials, representatives of civil society, and detention centers in Beijing, Jinan, Urumqi, Yining, and Lhasa and will submit a comprehensive report to the Commission on Human Rights in 2006, according to the U.N. release.

Mr. Nowak and his predecessor, Theo van Boven, have long negotiated with the Chinese government for permission to make an investigative visit to China. In March 2004, the Chinese government agreed to a visit by van Boven. It later postponed the visit with a pledge to reschedule it before the end of 2004, citing the need for additional preparations and the difficulty of coordinating the visit among local authorities. Mr. Nowak succeeded van Boven in December 2004.

The State Ethnic and Religious Affairs Commission (SERAC) in Qiansu city, Jiangsu province, signed cooperative agreements in July with legal aid centers in 36 cities to provide legal counsel to ethnic migrant workers. The number of minority migrant workers living in Qiansu has risen from 9,500 in the 1980s to over 24,000 today, according to an August 2 State Ethnic Affairs Commission report. More than 3,600 of Qiansu's minority citizens are currently employed in temporary jobs outside of the city and will now be able to seek legal counsel at legal aid centers in any of the 36 partner cities.

The Yili Kazahk Autonomous Prefecture government has banned the Sala branch of Islam in Xinjiang and arrested 179 practitioners, according to the German-based World Uighur Congress and a report by Agence-France Presse on August 19. High-ranking prefectural officials held a special work conference on the Sala "threat" on August 17, according to the Yili Daily. Government officials accused Sala leaders of "cheating and deceiving the masses, and inciting them to worship their religious leaders," and of pressuring followers to make donations to the organization. Officials also accused the leaders of encouraging "transprovincial worship" and "threatening social stability." The Yili press did not mention any arrests.

At least 40 percent of all new civil servants (other than teachers) recruited through civil service examinations in the Bayingguoleng Mongolian Autonomous Prefecture in Xinjiang must "in theory" be ethnic minorities, according to a July 27 decision announced by the prefectural government. About 42 percent of the prefecture's total population are minorities. The decision also pledged to grant tax incentives that the Xinjiang government approved in 2002 to enterprises that increase their total workforce by at least 25 percent with new minority hires.