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Security Targets Uighur Muslims

OnIslam, 29 November 2013

CAIRO – Uncovering practices of China’s heavy-handed security, a US-based human rights group has revealed the three out of four people arrested in China on suspicion of “endangering state security” last year were from Xinjiang and likely ethnic Uighurs.

“The level of transparency is quite low,” John Kamm, the founder of the San Francisco-based Dui Hua Foundation, told South China Morning Post on Thursday, November 28.

“Uighur names are sometimes given to highlight the success of the anti-terrorism attacks in Xinjiang,” he added.

The report released by Dui Hua foundation has found that a total of 1,105 people were held on such charges last year, a rise of 19 per cent over the previous year.

Based on an analysis of the official China Year Lawbook, Dui Hua said few details were given of endangering state security cases as they were considered state secret.

Yet, it estimated that 75 per cent of trials on such charges last year took place in Xinjiang for Uighur Muslims.

The rise in arrests was due to the authorities efforts to “fight the crimes of splittism, subversion and terrorism,” the foundation said, citing the lawbook.

“We hear of these cases from family members. Every now and then we get it from state media. Verdicts are considered state secrets, too,” Kamm said.

“In provinces like Guangdong, they don’t like the publicity associated with endangering state security, which is known to be a political crime, so they change it to graft.”

The arrested people usually face either a charge for endangering state security or for the lesser criminal defense of disrupting social order.

Endangering state security comprises a total of 12 crimes under the country’s Criminal Law, seven of which are potentially punishable by death.

Fresh arrests followed October 28 attack when a car struck and killed two tourists near Tiananmen Square and then went up in flames.

The government has labeled the episode an act of terrorism, accusing Uighur Muslims of plotting the attack.

Uighur Muslims have dismissed China’s account of a Tiananmen Square “terrorist attack” as a dubious pretext for repression, amid signs of stepped-up security.

The World Uyghur Congress’s said that they feared those who did not sign the pledge risked losing their license to practice law or would face investigation.

Uighur Muslims are a Turkish-speaking minority of eight million in the northwestern Xinjiang region.

Xinjiang, which activists call East Turkestan, has been autonomous since 1955 but continues to be the subject of massive security crackdowns by Chinese authorities.

Rights groups accuse Chinese authorities of religious repression against Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang in the name of counter terrorism.

http://www.onislam.net/english/news/asia-pacific/466415-security-arrests-target-uighur-muslims.html