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Uyghur Journalist To Face Trial

Originally published by RFA, 22 July 2010
By Mihray Abdilim

Sources say criminal proceedings are imminent. 

gheyret-niyaz266.jpg
Gheyret Niyaz in a screen grab from Uyghurbiz.net on March 25, 2010
 
HONG KONG—An ethnic Uyghur journalist arrested for talking to foreign media about the deadly July 2009 ethnic riots in far-northwestern China faces an imminent criminal trial, according to supporters.

 The Washington-based Uyghur American Association (UAA) said it is “extremely concerned about the upcoming trial of Uyghur journalist and webmaster Gheyret Niyaz on

HONG KONG—An ethnic Uyghur journalist arrested for talking to foreign media about the deadly July 2009 ethnic riots in far-northwestern China faces an imminent criminal trial, according to supporters. The Washington-based Uyghur American Association (UAA) said it is “extremely concerned about the upcoming trial of Uyghur journalist and webmaster Gheyret Niyaz on charges of ‘endangering state security.’”

The Uyghur exile organization and Niyaz’s own Uyghur Online website said he was to go on trial July 21, although details were unavailable and court officials in the Xinjiang regional capital, Urumqi, couldn’t be reached. Relatives declined requests for interviews.

Niyaz, 51 and a former deputy director of the official Xinjiang Legal Daily, was employed at the official Xinjiang Economic Daily as a journalist at the time of his detention on Oct. 4, 2009. His family received a warrant for his arrest four days later, relatives have said.

Niyaz also served as webmaster and administrator of the Uyghur Online website, run by moderate, outspoken Uyghur economics professor Ilham Tohti.

Other sources, including Uyghur Online which is now hosted in the United States after it was repeatedly closed in China, have said his trial was imminent.

On Wednesday, Tohti said he hoped for “a just verdict.”

Tohti said Niyaz’s wife had received no detailed information about her husband’s trial and added, “He is innocent.”

“He doesn’t hate the ethnic Han Chinese…He’s pro-[Communist] Party. Pro-government. He is a good reporter who told the truth. He spoke to foreign journalists, as a Uyghur intellectual who loves our nation and as a good reporter,” Tohti said.

“I hope and trust that the [authorities] will make a fair decision.”

In its 2009 annual report, the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) noted that Uyghur Online and its staff had been uniquely targeted after the 2009 violence.

“In spring 2009, authorities shut down the website Uyghur Online, a multi-language news and discussion forum that addressed issues of ethnicity in China, and interrogated Beijing-based scholar Ilham Tohti, who runs the
site,” the report said.

“Authorities later detained Ilham Tohti in July after XUAR government chairperson Nur Bekri alleged that Ilham
Tohti’s website contributed to incitement of rioting in Urumqi on July 5. Authorities released Ilham Tohti from detention on Aug. 2. The whereabouts of some other Uyghur Online staff members are reportedly unknown.”

‘Too many interviews’

Tohti said he and other supporters are trying to find a good lawyer for Niyaz and provide financial assistance for his wife.

Tohti, based at Beijing’s Central University for Nationalities, defended Niyaz from the outset.

When Niyaz was detained in October, he was taken to the Heavenly Mountain District [Tianshan Qu] detention center in Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), friends said.

Police said “he did too many interviews with foreign media about the July 5 Urumqi riots,” one source said.

Uyghur activists in exile expressed shock at his arrest because he was widely regarded as pro-government, even warning XUAR officials in July that ethnic riots could be imminent, although the exact content of his warning is unknown.

After the riots, Niyaz gave interviews to several foreign publications in which he criticized the unequal distribution of wealth in Xinjiang and accused authorities of heavy-handedness in their campaign to fight Uyghur “separatism.”

Simmering tensions

Millions of Uyghurs—a distinct, Turkic minority who are predominantly Muslim—populate Central Asia and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) of northwestern China.

Ethnic tensions between Uyghurs and majority Han Chinese settlers have simmered for years, and erupted in July 2009 in rioting that left some 200 people dead, according to the Chinese government’s tally.

Uyghurs say they have long suffered ethnic discrimination, oppressive religious controls, and continued poverty and joblessness despite China’s ambitious plans to develop its vast northwestern frontier.

Chinese authorities blame Uyghur separatists for a series of deadly attacks in recent years and accuse one group in particular of maintaining links to the al-Qaeda terrorist network.

http://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/trial-07222010152945.html