Xinjiang
The Kashgar District People’s Intermediate Court sentenced Uighur author Nurmemet Yasin to ten years' imprisonment on February 2, 2005, for publishing a story "inciting splittism." According to a Uighur-language Radio Free Asia report , Yasin published "The Wild Pigeon" in the Kashgar Literature Journal in the fall of 2004, and was arrested in Bachu County (Maralbeshi) on November 29, 2004. The story tells of a wild pigeon that travels far from home, only to be captured by humans and confined to a birdcage. The wild pigeon encounters several tamed pigeons who have lost their souls, in addition to their freedom, in exchange for regular feedings from the humans. The wild pigeon opts to commit suicide rather than remain imprisoned. Chinese authorities apparently interpreted the story as an allegorical criticism of Han Chinese policies in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. The court tried Yasin in closed hearings, and RFA sources report that he was denied access to a lawyer.
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.
Wang Lequan, the Party Secretary of the Xinjiang Autonomous Region, announced July 25 that university students from outside Xinjiang will be exempt from the civil service examination if they master a minority language during their two-year volunteer service and remain in Xinjiang after completing their tour. Wang made the announcement at a reception for university-level volunteers hailing from the predominantly Han Chinese areas of Guangdong, Gansu, and Shanxi provinces, and Beijing municipality. Since the government launched the program in 2003, a total of 1,379 university students have served two-year volunteer tours in Xinjiang, and 110 of these volunteers opted to remain in Xinjiang permanently, according to a July 26 Xinjiang Daily report.
The Xinjiang provincial education department will begin offering two-year degree programs in vocational schools this year, according to the July 27 Urumqi Evening News. The courses will be taught exclusively in Mandarin Chinese, reflecting an ongoing national and provincial campaign to promote Mandarin Chinese and reduce the use of local minority languages in schools (see 1 and 2 for related articles).
In "Silenced," Serena Fang, a journalist with the Public Broadcasting System program "Frontline," describes the treatment she and her interview subject received at the hands of Chinese authorities for conducting an interview that was not authorized by the government:
The Central Propaganda Department praised 18 model individuals and work units for "strengthening nationality unity" in a recently published "Ode to Progress in Minority Nationality Unity." The State Ethnic Affairs Commission (SEAC) Web site highlights the new work, which reflects a national campaign to "intensify propaganda on unity" among China's 56 ethnic nationalities.
More than 200,000 of Xinjiang's most well-educated citizens have moved out of the autonomous region since 1979, according to a May 1 article in the Workers Daily. Post-secondary schools outside Xinjiang admit more than 10,000 Xinjiang students each year, and fewer than half return to the autonomous region after graduation. The article says Xinjiang has 493,000 technically trained workers, just over half of whom are minorities.
Government officials in Kuche (Kuqa) county in Xinjiang have allocated RMB 1 million per year between 2004 and 2009 to improve Han language competency in primary schools, according to a May 10 article in the Xinjiang Daily. More than 90 percent of the county's 60,000 Uighur primary school students who study in Chinese now have working competency in the language, according to the report. The government has enrolled 150 Uighur teachers from the countryside in a five-year Han language program at the Northwest Nationalities Institute in Gansu province. The teachers will return to Kuche County during their school holidays to conduct Han language training sessions for other teachers, and to set up Han language testing centers.
April 27, 2005 - A group of Xinjiang tour guides established The Xinjiang Tour Guide Autonomous Protection Alliance on April 24, according to a report on Tianshan Net. 136 tour guides took the first steps to organize the non-governmental organization by signing a letter of intent in 2003. The report does not explain the two-year delay between the signing of the letter and the establishment of the Alliance. The Alliance hopes to elevate the status of the tour guide profession, protect the "legitimate interests" of Xinjiang’s tour guides, and improve the standards and training of tour guides.The report notes that there are more than 5,000 tour guides in Xinjiang, only some of whom are full-time employees of travel agencies.
The government of the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region announced the specific selection criteria for prospective middle and high school students, according to an April 20 Urumqi News account. All students in China must take entrance examinations, but the government has preferential programs for ethnic minorities. The Xinjiang government will send 3,115 of the top applicants to special classes at high schools in eastern Chinese provinces, and will train another 3,000 students at local middle schools.