New executions and arrests in China

According to information received by the Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) China is stepping up the persecution of Uighurs in Xinjiang / East Turkistan. Two Uighurs were sentenced to death today, Thursday, by a court in the town of Kashgar for an attack on a police station on 4th August 2008, reported the human rights organisation. The 28-year old taxi-driver Kurbanjan Hemit and the 33-year old greengrocer Abdurahman Azat were executed immediately after the pronouncement of the sentence. The authorities state that 17 policemen were killed in the attack

Since the middle of March 2009 more than 70 Uighurs have been arrested for political reasons in systematic house searches in Kashgar. 16 more Uighurs were arrested near the town in the district of Maralbexi while they were practising martial art in a public park. They were accused of illegal military training. In the town of Hotan 39 Moslem Uighurs have been taken into custody and at least seven Koran schools closed by the authorities.

In neighbouring Tibet a court condemned yesterday, Wednesday, two Tibetan demonstrators to death and pronounced death sentences with a delayed effect against two other defendants. "While death sentences on Tibetan demonstrators are seldom carried out, being usually as a result of international protests converted into prison sentences, Uighurs sentenced to the maximum penalty are mostly in fact executed”, said the GfbV Asia consultant, Ulrich Delius, on Thursday in Göttingen. "No other ethnic group in China suffers so much from the extreme sentencing to the death penalty as the Uighurs.” Since 1997 more than 700 Uighurs have been executed for political reasons.

The secretary of the Communist Party of Xinjiang, Wang Lequan, in a visit to Kashgar and Hotan at the beginning of March 2009 called for increased efforts on the part of the authorities in the fight against "Uighur terrorists”. Moslem Uighurs, who only stand up in public for their human rights anchored in the constitution, are also criminalised wholesale as "terrorists”.

Kashgar is a traditional homeland of the Moslem ethnic group and a centre of peaceful resistance on the part of the Uighurs to the Sinicisation of the region. In recent weeks more than 2,100 surveillance cameras have been installed on streets and public places. A special security unit with a staff of nearly 1,800 has been set up, which is to increase pressure on the Uighurs with controls in streets, internet cafés and other buildings.

If you would like further information you can also reach the GfbV Asia consultant, Ulrich Delius, at tel. ++49 (0)160 95 67 14