The Xinjiang region is predominantly Muslim

BEIJING, February 5 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Amnesty International on Wednesday, February 5, called for an independent inquiry into accusations of serious human rights violations during and after a crackdown on a 1997 demonstration by ethnic Uighur minorities in western China.

The appeal comes on the sixth anniversary of the demonstration in Yining city in the restive, traditionally Muslim-dominated Xinjiang region, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

The Chinese government has said 10 people were killed in the unrest but Uighur sources at the time said about 100 died.

In a statement Wednesday, Amnesty said dozens of people were killed or injured when Chinese security forces reportedly opened fire on Uighur demonstrators in Yining on February 5 and 6, 1997.

The initially peaceful demonstration on February 5 was followed by several days of sporadic rioting in which both civilians and members of the security forces were killed or injured.

Thousands of people were detained as the security forces went systematically through the streets, arresting suspected protestors and supporters, including their relatives. Many of those detained were reportedly tortured, Amnesty said.

Amnesty has written to Ismail Tiliwaldi, the newly-appointed chair of the Xinjiang government, calling for an investigation and requesting further information about those who remain in prison.

"We fear that many have been imprisoned in violation of their fundamental human rights or after unfair trials," Amnesty said, adding that it had records of 20 people thought to still remain in prison, but believed the total to be much higher.

"The authorities must make public details of the whereabouts of those detained together with their current legal status and the charges against them," the international human rights organization said.

"It must also address other serious human rights abuses perpetrated during the crackdown on the protestors."

A group of several hundred protestors were reportedly hosed down with icy water after being detained in a public open space on February 5, 1997, Amnesty said.

Many contracted severe frostbite as a result and had to have limbs amputated. At least two people detained in connection with the demonstration later died in custody, apparently as a result of torture, Amnesty said.

Subjective Yardstick of 'Terrorism'

The Chinese authorities have since claimed that the rioting was organized by "terrorists", but Amnesty said it has failed to provide any evidence to substantiate these claims.

Eyewitness accounts indicate that the demonstrators were local people and that the rioting was mainly provoked by the brutality of the security forces, Amnesty said.

"In the absence of any reliable or credible evidence of 'terrorist' involvement in these protests, this appears to be yet another example of the authorities using the subjective yardstick of 'terrorism' to justify repression and serious human rights violations against people attempting to exercise their fundamental human rights in (Xinjiang)," Amnesty said.

On Thursday, January 30, Mehmet Emin Hazret, leader of the East Turkestan Liberation Organization said in a radio interview with Radio Free Asia, that military option is hard to avoid if East Turkestan (Xinjiang) is to win independence.

“Our principal goal is to achieve independence for East Turkestan by peaceful means,” he said.

“But to show our enemies and friends our determination on the East Turkestan issue, we view a military wing as inevitable.”

The crackdown by the Chinese government comes one month after U.S. officials visited China for human rights talks in December 2002 that had a heavy focus on the treatment of Muslim minorities.

The U.S. delegation led by Lorne Craner, assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor, spent two of the official program’s four days in the predominantly Muslim region of Xinjiang, AFP reported.

U.S. officials declined to elaborate at the end of the meetings, which overran by an hour. A U.S. diplomat said then: “Issues in Xinjiang are an important focus of these talks.”

The standoff between China’s Han majority and Xinjiang’s Muslim Uighurs has extended as far as Beijing, 2,000 kilometers (1,250 miles) from the vast desert area, AFP said.

China has ruled Xinjiang to varying degrees for centuries and it re-established control in 1949 by crushing the short-lived state of East Turkestan that emerged during the Chinese civil war, which ended that year.

Since then, Beijing has encouraged and assisted in the mass migration of Han Chinese to the region, some say to dilute nationalist tendencies, but hopes of independence have been rekindled since the fall of the Soviet Union and the emergence of the Muslim states of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.