Five years after the Gulja massacre China is intensifying its repression of Muslims

On the fifth anniversary of the massacre on 5. February 1997 at Gulja in Xinjiang Province, North-western China, on Tuesday Gesellschaft für bedrohte Völker (GfbV) / Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) took gloomy stock of the present situation. According to the human rights organisation the repressive measures applied by Chinese security forces against the local population of Muslim Uighurs have further intensified since 11 September. "Beijing is waging war on Muslims," declared GfbV/STP's Asian Desk representative Ulrich Delius, speaking in Göttingen. During November and December last year 526 Uighurs in the provincial capital of Urumqi alone along with another 300 more in the south of the region were arrested on political charges following deployment of 40,000 troops to the area.

"The fight against extremist terrorism cannot justify forcing Muslim clerics to attend Party re-education courses and forbidding Muslim students to fast during Ramadan, as happened last November", Delius maintained. On 5 January 2002 the Communist Party in Hotan, one of the largest towns in the south of East Turkestan, went so far as to call for "cleansing" and "reorganisation of schools".

On 5 February five years ago, on the day following the "Holy Night" of Ramadan, serious disturbances broke out in Gulja as family and friends called for the release of hundreds of young Muslims arrested during collective prayers. Up to one hundred people were killed in the bloody suppression of the protests, hundreds were injured and at least 4,000 Uighurs were arrested. For a period one in three of the male population of Gulja were being held in detention.

"The repression is being directed against the Uighur civilian population as a whole", said Enver Can, President of the East Turkestan National Congress, in Munich. In Gulja (Yili in Chinese) the climate of violence promoted by the Chinese authorities and the security forces has become even more intolerable, added Delius. On 3 January 2002 the provincial prefecture issued an edict providing for special surveillance of Islamic festivals, wedding and funerals and the suppression of "feudal rites". At least 65 Uighurs have been condemned to death and executed for their presumed involvement in the disturbances five years ago. Most recently on 15.October 2001 five Uighurs received death sentences for taking part in the public protests. However many "confessions" have been extracted under pressure. 97 Uighurs have been given lengthy prison sentences. Chinese police officers who took part in the repression of the disturbances have not been held accountable for crimes committed.