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Exile Group: China's Crackdown In Xinjiang Violates Human Rights
BEIJING, Feb. 5 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Exiled members of Xinjiang's Uighur population appealed Tuesday to the international community to condemn China for violating human rights in the Muslim-majority region under the guise of anti-terrorism, news agencies reported.
Beijing stepped up a campaign of repression against ethnic Uighurs in Xinjiang following the September 11 terror attacks in the United States, the German-based Eastern Turkestan Information Center said in a statement, AFP reported.
Using the "pretext" of fighting terrorism, more than 3,000 Uighurs were arrested on political charges in the three months after September 11, said the Center, named after the independent Xinjiang state sought by some activists. During that period at least 12 trials of "splittists and illegal religious elements" took place, with 20 people executed, it added.
"The Chinese government justifies its brutal oppression of Uighurs in East Turkestan by describing it as part of the international (anti-terror) campaign," the group said. Beijing has repeatedly insisted that Muslim separatists in Xinjiang should be dealt with as part of the war on terror.
A Chinese government paper claimed last month that many groups have links to Afghanistan, which borders the far-western region, and some have been directly funded and trained by Osama bin Laden. These accusations were completely false, the Center argued.
"Numerous criminal acts including bombings, accidental explosions and criminal cases of homicide were blamed without any evidence on 'East Turkestan Separatists'”, the report said. Many bomb explosions occurred elsewhere in China which were not blamed on terrorism, it noted.
The statement, compiling information from local newspaper reports and other regional sources, also detailed alleged religious and ethnic discrimination against Uighurs, the Turkic-speaking ethnic group which makes up just under 40 percent of Xinjiang's population.
For example, during the holy month of Ramadan that ended in mid-December (2001), many Muslims were ordered not to fast during the day, as dictated under religious custom, the Center said.
Additionally, the report said, economic discrimination against Uighurs was worsening, with preference in employment given to ethnic Han Chinese migrants.
Overall, Xinjiang's Uighurs had "legitimate reasons" for protesting at Chinese rule. "The violence subjected on the Uighur people by the government far exceeds the level of violence caused by a few desperate individuals," it said.
The Center "appeals to the international community to condemn the attempts of the Chinese government the present Uighurs as international Islamic terrorists".
The United States has rejected a direct link between its own anti-terrorism campaign and the crackdown in Xinjiang, while some overseas human rights groups have expressed concern that even peaceful dissent is being repressed.
Earlier in January, Chinese government sources said that China is stepping up control of Muslim religious and folk customs in its western-most Xinjiang region, as Beijing cracks down on separatist groups there.
The government of Yili prefecture, a hotbed of violence in China's border region with Kazhakstan, issued a circular calling on officials to step up surveillance of local religious and folk customs, the Center said quoted by AFP.
The circular specifically targets weddings and funerals as well as circumcision ceremonies, house-moving rituals and the wearing of earrings, the center said in a statement.
"Since the September 11 terrorist incident (on the United States), the Chinese government is not only using counter-terrorism to strike at Uighur people legally seeking political rights, but now views traditional ethnic lifestyles as a major element of instability," the center said.
Ethnic Uighur government and party officials have been told to seek permission before attending any such festivals or ceremonies and report back to the government upon the completion of their activities, the circular said.
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