Uighurs Face Extreme Security Measures; Official Statements on Terrorism Conflict

April 28, 2006

Officials in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) "continued to use the threat of violence as justification for extreme security measures directed at the local population and visiting foreigners," the U.S. Department of State reported in its 2005 Country Report on Human Rights Practices for China issued on March 8. The government has targeted the XUAR's Uighur population in particular for these measures. As Human Rights Watch and Human Rights in China note in their 2005 report Devastating Blows: Religious Repression of Uighurs in Xinjiang, "Official sources show that among Uighur prisoners in Xinjiang there is an unusually high proportion of criminals sentenced for state security offenses." The report notes that Uighurs sentenced for such crimes include those engaged in peaceful activities, though the "sweeping scope of the law makes it difficult to discern which cases involved genuine criminal activity...and which were punishment for peaceful exercise of rights such as dissent or religious practice." Uighurs imprisoned in recent years for such peaceful activity include:

Officials in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) "continued to use the threat of violence as justification for extreme security measures directed at the local population and visiting foreigners," the U.S. Department of State reported in its 2005 Country Report on Human Rights Practices for China issued on March 8. The government has targeted the XUAR's Uighur population in particular for these measures. As Human Rights Watch and Human Rights in China note in their 2005 report Devastating Blows: Religious Repression of Uighurs in Xinjiang, "Official sources show that among Uighur prisoners in Xinjiang there is an unusually high proportion of criminals sentenced for state security offenses." The report notes that Uighurs sentenced for such crimes include those engaged in peaceful activities, though the "sweeping scope of the law makes it difficult to discern which cases involved genuine criminal activity...and which were punishment for peaceful exercise of rights such as dissent or religious practice." Uighurs imprisoned in recent years for such peaceful activity include:

  • Abdehelil Zunun, who received a 20-year sentence in November 2001 after translating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights into Uighur.
  • Abdulghani Memetemin, a journalist sentenced to nine years imprisonment in 2003 after providing information on government repression against Uighurs to an overseas organization. Authorities characterized this act as "supplying state secrets to an organization outside the country."
  • Writer Nurmemet Yasin, who received a 10-year sentence in 2005 after he wrote a story about a caged pigeon who commits suicide rather than live without freedom.
  • Korash Huseyin, editor of the journal that published Yasin's story, who received a three-year sentence.

Government actions that conflate the peaceful exercise of rights with terrorist or separatist activity obscure the extent of anti-state violence in the XUAR, a problem compounded by inconsistent official statements on terrorism. Chinese officials have "acknowledged there have been no acts of separatist violence or terrorism in Xinjiang since 1999," the 2005 State Department report noted. Other Chinese government statistics portray a continuing problem. A 2002 State Council Information Office document titled "'East Turkistan' Terrorist Forces Cannot Get Away With Impunity" (available on the People's Daily Web site) cites "incomplete statistics" showing that "the 'East Turkistan' terrorist forces" carried out over 200 terrorist incidents in the XUAR from 1990 to 2001, leading to 162 dead and more than 440 injured. Xinjiang scholar James Millward analyzed the 2002 State Council document in a 2004 East-West Center Washington paper titled Violent Separatism in Xinjiang: A Critical Assessment and observed that it provides details only on about one-third of these deaths. Millward concluded that "it seems legitimate to question what makes the unlisted acts 'terrorist' or 'separatist' as opposed to simply criminal. One may also conclude from the document that the frequency and size of incidents of anti-state violence in Xinjiang have declined since 1997 or 1998."

In the years leading up to the 2002 State Council document, authorities provided varying reports on the number of violent incidents in the region. Millward reports that in 1999 they cited "thousands," downplayed violence on September 2, 2001, and then stressed terrorist threats in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States. Statements since then have cited statistics similar to those in the 2002 State Council document but for timeframes that differ:

  • A February 25 Xinhua article naming "'East Turkistan' terrorist forces inside and outside Chinese territory" among China's main terrorist threats reported that the "three forces" of separatism, terrorism, and religious extremism within the XUAR "hatched more than 260 terrorist plots over the past 10 years, killing more than 160 innocent people and injuring 440 others."
  • In 2005, a China Daily article reported the Ministry of Public Security said in September of that year that "more than 260 terrorist acts," 160 deaths, and 440 injuries had taken place in the XUAR "in the past two decades."
  • In 2004, the People's Daily reported "more than 260 attacks" in the XUAR, 162 deaths, and "more than" 440 injured.
  • Xiong Guangkai, Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the People's Liberation Army, said in a 2003 speech (available on the Web site of the Munich Conference on Security Policy) that "'East Turkistan' terrorists" had carried out "over 260 terrorist attacks in China since 1990, claiming 170 lives and leaving 440 wounded."

For more information on the government's crackdown in the XUAR, see the CECC's Political Prisoner Database and the sections on Rights Violations in Xinjiang and Religious Freedom for China's Muslims in the 2005 CECC Annual Report.