Xinjiang
Authorities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) have continued widespread censorship campaigns in 2010 and 2011, according to recent reports. The censorship work in the XUAR hews to a countrywide campaign to "Sweep Away Pornography and Strike Down Illegal Publications," but with special emphasis on religious and political items and "reactionary materials" that authorities deem are from organizations connected to the "three forces" of terrorism, separatism, and religious extremism.
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.
Hiring practices that discriminate against non-Han groups have continued in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). As documented by the CECC in recent years (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), job recruitment announcements from the region have reserved positions exclusively for Han Chinese in civil servant posts, state-owned enterprises, and private-sector jobs, including those advertised on government Web sites. The practices contravene provisions in Chinese law that forbid discrimination.
New System Bolsters Grazing Bans
Draft Law Includes New Limits
Number of Endangering State Security Crimes Declines But Remains High
The following text was retrieved from the Xinjiang Education Department Web site on April 13, 2011.
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.
New information is available on the whereabouts of Uyghur asylum seeker Memet Eli (Memtili) Rozi, while news of his health status, following an injury last year, remains unknown, according to December 13 (Uyghur) and 15 (English), 2010, articles from Radio Free Asia (RFA). Memet Eli Rozi was among a group of 22 Uyghurs in Cambodia in late 2009 who sought asylum from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) office in Phnom Penh. Twenty of the other asylum seekers were forcibly returned to China on December 19, 2010 (see below for details). Memet Eli Rozi escaped deportation and went to Laos, where his family joined him.