China yesterday published a list of eight alleged terrorists from its Muslim northwest who it said had threatened the Beijing Olympics, and appealed to other countries for help in finding them.
“All the eight terrorists listed are members of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement [ETIM],” Public Security Bureau spokesman Wu Heping (吳和平) told reporters. “And they all took part in plotting, organizing and executing various terrorist activities targeting the Beijing Olympic Games.”
The ETIM, listed by China, the US and the UN as a terrorist organization, has been striving for many years to create an independent homeland in the Muslim-populated Chinese region of Xinjiang.
Xinjiang is a vast area of mountains and deserts that borders central Asia, and many of its 8.3 million Uighurs, a Muslim minority speaking a Turkic language, say they have suffered decades of repression under communist rule.
However Uighur dissidents and some human rights groups have said China has exaggerated the threat from so-called terrorists in Xinjiang to justify a harsh security crackdown there.
Wu appealed to other countries for help China in capturing the alleged terrorists.
“We hope that the governments of relevant countries and law enforcement agencies will ... track them down, immediately arrest them and hand them over to China so that we can hold them responsible for their crimes,” he said.
All eight were Chinese nationals with Uighur names.
Wu alleged some of the eight had organized terrorist training, recruited members, raised funds for terrorist activities and manufactured poisons and explosives.
Others had participated in militant training, Wu said.
Meanwhile, Beijing-based AIDS campaigner Wan Yanhai (萬延海) is back at work following a government-imposed shutdown of his activities during the recent Beijing Olympics, but he’s treading carefully.
He said police have tailed him recently and the government last month applied new pressure with a surprise tax probe of his Aizhixing Institute, which advocates for the rights of AIDS victims, a touchy subject in China.
Despite hopes the Olympics would improve human rights, China’s crackdown on dissidents before and during the Games has likely set the stage for a lasting period of even tighter controls, government critics say.
Wan, 44, who works from a cramped and dingy office, said China was unlikely to loosen the tightened grip taken in the Games run-up after developing an even deeper understanding of dissident activities during the crackdown.
Airlines in Australia, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia and Singapore yesterday canceled flights to and from the Indonesian island of Bali, after a nearby volcano catapulted an ash tower into the sky. Australia’s Jetstar, Qantas and Virgin Australia all grounded flights after Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki on Flores island spewed a 9km tower a day earlier. Malaysia Airlines, AirAsia, India’s IndiGo and Singapore’s Scoot also listed flights as canceled. “Volcanic ash poses a significant threat to safe operations of the aircraft in the vicinity of volcanic clouds,” AirAsia said as it announced several cancelations. Multiple eruptions from the 1,703m twin-peaked volcano in
China has built a land-based prototype nuclear reactor for a large surface warship, in the clearest sign yet Beijing is advancing toward producing the nation’s first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, according to a new analysis of satellite imagery and Chinese government documents provided to The Associated Press. There have long been rumors that China is planning to build a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, but the research by the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California is the first to confirm it is working on a nuclear-powered propulsion system for a carrier-sized surface warship. Why is China’s pursuit of nuclear-powered carriers significant? China’s navy is already
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) launched a week-long diplomatic blitz of South America on Thursday by inaugurating a massive deep-water port in Peru, a US$1.3 billion investment by Beijing as it seeks to expand trade and influence on the continent. With China’s demand for agricultural goods and metals from Latin America growing, Xi will participate in the APEC summit in Lima then head to the Group of 20 summit in Rio de Janeiro next week, where he will also make a state visit to Brazil. Xi and Peruvian President Dina Boluarte participated on Thursday by video link in the opening
IT’S A DEAL? Including the phrase ‘overlapping claims’ in a Chinese-Indonesian joint statement over the weekend puts Jakarta’s national interests at risk, critics say Indonesia yesterday said it does not recognize China’s claims over the South China Sea, despite signing a maritime development deal with Beijing, as some analysts warned the pact risked compromising its sovereign rights. Beijing has long clashed with Southeast Asian neighbors over the South China Sea, which it claims almost in its entirety, based on a “nine-dash line” on its maps that cuts into the exclusive economic zones (EEZ) of several countries. Joint agreements with China in the strategic waterway have been sensitive for years, with some nations wary of deals they fear could be interpreted as legitimizing Beijing’s vast claims. In 2016,
RSS