China has executed two Uighurs and sentenced 15 others to prison in its Central Asian region of Xinjiang after a court convicted them of terrorism, US-based Radio Free Asia reported yesterday.
Mukhtar Setiwaldi and Abduweli Imin were executed on Wednesday shortly after a public sentencing rally organized by the Intermediate People’s Court in the far western city of Kashgar, the broadcaster quoted local sources as saying.
Three other Uighurs were given death sentences, suspended for two years, and the remaining 12 were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 10 years to life, it said.
All 17 Uighurs were charged with belonging to the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, which the US and China list as an international terrorist group.
East Turkestan is the name still given to Xinjiang by Uighurs seeking an independent state.
The 17 Uighurs were arrested in a raid on a suspected terrorist camp in the Pamir Mountains in Xinjiang’s Aktu County in January last year, when the government said its forces shot dead 18 others.
The Uighur American Association said yesterday that the sentencing in Kashgar showed that China was “ratcheting up already intense terror claims to crack down on Uighurs on an unprecedented scale.”
The Chinese Communist Party has chosen to “exploit the ‘war on terror’ and Uighurs’ Muslim faith to suppress peaceful Uighur dissent while gaining international sympathy for their cause,” the group said in a statement.
“In light of the PRC’s [People’s Republic of China] documented pattern of the persecution of the Uighur people in the name of terrorism, extremism and separatism, its recent terror allegations and alleged terror raids warrant the intense scrutiny of the international community,” said Rebiya Kadeer, the group’s president.
Police in Xinjiang on Thursday said they had arrested 82 suspected terrorists in five groups this year after they “allegedly plotted sabotage against the Beijing Olympics.”
US lawmakers on Friday “strongly condemned” what they called Beijing’s harsh pre-Olympic crackdown.
The bipartisan leadership of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus in a statement cited “credible” reports about the convictions and executions on terrorism charges.
These are “abuses of due process and rule of law,” said caucus co-chairmen Democrat Jim McGovern and Republican Frank Wolf.
The same day, police in Urumqi reportedly killed five Uighur men who authorities claimed were part of a 15-member criminal gang allegedly trained for “holy war.”
“The Chinese government should not be permitted to use the ‘war on terror’ or Olympic security as a front to persecute the Uighurs,” Wolf said.
“These trials appear to be no more than a ploy to oppress religious freedom and ethnic minority groups,” he said.
He called on Beijing to uphold the commitments made to the international community when awarded the right to host the Games and improve its human rights record.
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