Xinjiang

The Tianshan District People's Court in Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR), imposed a prison sentence and fines on one son of exiled Uighur activist Rebiya Kadeer and levied fines on another son on November 27, according to a November 27 Xinhua report (via People's Daily) and a November 27 press release from the Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP). The court sentenced Alim Abdurehim (Abdureyim) to seven years in prison and fined him 500,000 yuan (US$62,500) for evading taxes in the amount of 208,430 yuan (US$26,000). The court imposed a 100,000 yuan (US$12,500) fine on Qahar (Kahar) Abdurehim for evading taxes worth almost 2.5 million yuan (US$312,500). The tax evasion charges stem from the brothers' involvement in two businesses previously run by Kadeer.

Official government repression of Protestant house church members in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) continued in October and November, with three reported incidences of house church members being taken into custody, according to the China Aid Association (CAA), a U.S. NGO that monitors religious freedom in China.

Chinese Muslim pilgrims may now only receive hajj visas at the Saudi Embassy in Beijing and only if they are part of a Chinese government-sponsored trip, according to an announcement from the State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA) reported on October 4 in Ta Kung Pao and October 12 on the SARA Web site. The new measures were established in an agreement signed in May between the state-controlled Islamic Association of China (IAC) and the Saudi Ministry of Pilgrimage. SARA publicized the agreement after a group of Muslims from the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) attempted to obtain Saudi visas via a third country in August and September. As part of the agreement, the IAC will organize a second overseas pilgrimage each year in addition to the main annual pilgrimage to Mecca.

The Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) government is continuing a controversial "work-study" program that requires students to spend up to 14 days each year picking cotton and other crops, despite complaints from students and parents. A September 12 Tianshan Net article profiled student and teacher complaints about the work-study program in Changji City, where students in the second year of junior high and above must pick cotton and students in the third grade of elementary school and higher must pick hops in 12-hour shifts at farms within the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC). Some students cannot meet their quota, which is equivalent to picking 22 kilograms a day, and parents have joined their children in the fields to help them harvest this amount, the article reported.

Schools in Artush city, Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR), will teach all first grade elementary school classes in Mandarin Chinese beginning in September 2006, according to a July 11 article in the Xinjiang Daily. Artush is the capital of the Kizilsu Kirgiz Autonomous Prefecture in the XUAR. The prefectural government and Party committee, which are jointly carrying out the policy, will require all primary and secondary schools to teach exclusively in Mandarin by the year 2012. Since March 2006, teachers in 76 preschool classes in the city have instructed students entirely in Mandarin, the article reported. In Artush, 80 percent of the population is Uighur, Kirgiz make up 12 percent, and Han Chinese almost 8 percent, according to 2001 statistics available on the Kizilsu Kirgiz Autonomous Prefecture government’s Web site.

The Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC) will hire 840 civil servants from the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) through its 2006 recruitment exam, of whom 38 will be ethnic minorities and the remainder Han Chinese, according to materials posted June 26 on the XPCC's Personnel Testing Authority Web site. Ethnic minorities make up over 60 percent of the XUAR population, according to statistics cited in a 2003 Tianshan Net article. The positions available include 197 jobs with the public security police, 480 with the prison police, 37 in the court system, and 41 in the justice bureau, as well as positions at other offices within the XPCC.

Authorities in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) arrested three adult sons of exiled Uighur activist Rebiya Kadeer and charged them on June 13 with state security and economic crimes, according to a June 14 press release from the Uyghur American Association (UAA). Authorities charged Ablikim Abdurehim (Abdureyim) with subverting state power, Alim Abdurehim with tax evasion and splitting the state, and Qahar (Kahar) Abdurehim with tax evasion, according to the report. Authorities also placed Kadeer's brother, Mamat Kadeer, under house arrest.

Authorities in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) launched a month-long campaign on May 17 aimed at rooting out "political and religious illegal publications," according to a June 3 article from Tianshan Net. Officials began the campaign to create a "good cultural environment" for a national book fair held in Urumqi, the XUAR capital, and as part of the region's 2006 Sweep Away Pornography and Strike Down Illegal Publications campaign. A May 18 Xinjiang Daily article (via Tianshan Net) on the campaign noted a large number of illegal political and religious publications in the XUAR, including political publications that "propagate holy war and propagate terrorism."