Arrests in Xinjiang Top 18,000 for Crimes Including State Security Offenses

February 28, 2006

The Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) procuratorate approved the arrest of 18,227 criminal suspects investigated by public security, state security, and other agencies during 2005, according to a report delivered at the 4th Session of the 10th XUAR People's Congress and cited in a January 20 Xinjiang Daily article (in Chinese) and a January 23 Reuters article in The China Post. The procuratorate indicted 21,853 people during the same year, and courts acquitted 39 people in public prosecution cases for crimes in the region. The report neither specified the number of arrests or people indicted for state security offenses, nor provided a breakdown by ethnic group of those arrested and indicted in the XUAR.

The Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) procuratorate approved the arrest of 18,227 criminal suspects investigated by public security, state security, and other agencies during 2005, according to a report delivered at the 4th Session of the 10th XUAR People's Congress and cited in a January 20 Xinjiang Daily article (in Chinese) and a January 23 Reuters article in The China Post. The procuratorate indicted 21,853 people during the same year, and courts acquitted 39 people in public prosecution cases for crimes in the region. The report neither specified the number of arrests or people indicted for state security offenses, nor provided a breakdown by ethnic group of those arrested and indicted in the XUAR.

While the absence of detail makes it difficult to analyze these arrest and indictment statistics, in 2005 the XUAR government continued its campaign against the "three forces" of separatism, terrorism, and religious extremism. The government has included non-violent activities by ethnic Uighurs among the acts deemed threats to state security. In February 2005, the Kashgar Intermediate People’s Court sentenced Uighur author Nurmemet Yasin to 10 years in prison for "inciting splittism" after he wrote a story about a pigeon who chooses death rather than live in a cage. Korash Huseyin, editor of the literature journal that published the story, received a three-year sentence.

The official arrest statistics exclude people detained without charges as part of the government's crackdown on perceived state security threats. In December 2005, authorities released two employees of Uighur dissident Rebiya Kadeer after detaining them for seven months without charges. Although officials disclosed no legal basis for detaining the pair, XUAR Party Secretary Wang Lequan accused Kadeer in August 2005 of plotting terrorist attacks.

For more information see the sections on Rights Violations in Xinjiang and Religious Freedom for China's Muslims in the 2005 CECC Annual Report. See also James Millward's 2004 East-West Center Washington report Violent Separatism in Xinjiang: A Critical Assessment for information on state security issues in the XUAR.