BEIJING, September 12 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – While Beijing hailed Thursday, September 12, a U.N. decision to add a Muslim separatist group opposing Chinese rule in the country’s western region of Xinjiang to a list of terrorist groups, many human rights groups condemned the move as an attempt to repress all forms of dissent.

“This is an encouraging result from China’s cooperation with the United States and other countries in fighting terrorism,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan said, according to the official Xinhua news agency, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

The decision, announced by the United Nations in New York Wednesday - the anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the city and Washington DC - followed a request by Beijing, backed by Washington among others.

The little-known East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM) is on a list compiled by the U.N. Security Council committee on sanctions against al-Qaeda, the network set up by Osama bin Laden, U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said.

According to some observers, such moves add legitimacy to a Chinese crackdown against the ethnic Uighur population of Xinjiang (Eastern Turkistan); a crackdown condemned by many human rights groups as an attempt to repress all forms of dissent.

Apart from the United States, the decision was also backed by Afghanistan and Kyrgyzstan, one of eight countries bordering Xinjiang, a vast, oil-rich region with a significant population of Turkic-speaking ethnic Uighurs, who practice a moderate form of Islam.

In recent years, the region has seen a separatist campaign by Uighurs seeking to establish an independent state called East Turkistan, one interspersed with sporadic incidents of violence.

Beijing called repeatedly for its measures against these groups to be considered as part of the U.S.-led war on terrorism, but Washington previously rejected the idea.

However, last month in an apparent turnaround, the United States announced it would freeze the assets of ETIM members.

This was seen by some observers in Washington and Asia as a concession to secure continued Chinese cooperation in the anti-terror campaign and to ensure Beijing does not seek to block any U.S. action against Iraq.

But the State Department claimed Wednesday that the ETIM was a known terrorist group.

“The Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement is a violent group believed responsible for committing numerous acts of terrorism in China, including bombings of buses, movie theaters, department stores, markets, and hotels, assassination, and arson,” said State Department spokesman Philip Reeker.

“The fact that this request was made jointly shows that other countries in the region share our concern about the terrorist threat posed by this group.”

However, the precise crimes for which the ETIM has been blamed remains uncertain.

Late last month, the U.S. Embassy in Beijing said the ETIM was believed responsible for more than 200 acts of terrorism in China, without providing any details.

In January this year, the Chinese government also produced a figure of more than 200 terrorist acts committed from 1990 to 2001, but attributed these to a range of Xinjiang groups, not just the ETIM.

A series of rights groups, as well as outgoing U.N. human rights commissioner Mary Robinson, warned that China is using anti-terrorism as an excuse to repress Xinjiang’s Uighurs.

In March, Amnesty International said anti-terrorism had been used as a reason for a major security clampdown in the predominantly desert region.

“However the subjective yardstick of ‘terrorism’ has been used to detain a broad range of people, some of whom may have done little more than practice their religion or defend their culture,” the group said.

On one occasion in 1997, the town of Ghulja was brought to a halt by large-scale Uighur demonstrations in Ramadan (Muslim month of fasting). In response, the Chinese government sealed off the town, imposed a press black-out, and proceeded to viciously quell the protests.

The official count suggested 10 deaths and 198 injured, and 500 arrests, according to Human Rights Watch. Uighur sources insist the numbers were many times higher.

A similar situation occurred in the town of Baren, where an alleged armed insurgency was quelled with military forces, reportedly leaving dozens, if not hundreds dead.

A Human Rights Watch report, released in June, 2002, is also particularly illuminating. The report describes the various forms of repression and persecution suffered by the Muslims of Eastern Turkistan under Chinese rule.

Draconian measures have been, and still are, utilized by the Chinese to stamp out any manifestations of religious sentiment among the Uighurs in the aftermath of September 11. Examples of this are plentiful in Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the U.S. Department of State’s reports.

It is of little surprise that China, like so many other countries, has chosen to take advantage of September 11th to further its own political agenda and silence - ruthlessly so- internal dissent.

All recent human rights reports point to a drastic escalation of persecution and repression against the Uighur minority.

U.N. High Commissioner Mary Robinson expressed her concern over the treatment of the Uighurs in a November 2001 visit to China.

The Chinese government predictably responded that “terrorism,” that ephemeral and much-abused term, is an infringement of human rights and is a threat to international peace and security.

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