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Beijing
claims Uighurs trying to launch rebellion
AFP, BEIJING
Thursday, Apr 03, 2008, Page 1
China has accused Muslims in the nation¡¦s northwest of trying to start a
rebellion, following what an exile group said yesterday were peaceful protests
against injustices under Chinese rule.
The unrest occurred in China¡¦s Muslim-majority Xinjiang region last month, after
Chinese authorities warned that ¡§terrorists¡¨ based there were planning attacks
on the Beijing Olympics and had tried to bomb a Beijing-bound plane.
In the latest incident, extremist forces tried to incite an uprising in a
marketplace in Khotan city on March 23, the local government said in a statement
posted on its Web site this week.
It did not reveal how many people were involved in the protest, but said up to
100,000 people were in the market when the unrest occurred.
An exiled group representing people in Xinjiang said up to 1,000 people were
involved in two protests there on March 23 and March 24.
¡§A small number of elements ... tried to incite splittism, create disturbances
in the market place and even trick the masses into an uprising,¡¨ the Khotan
government statement said.
It said the people involved adhered to the ¡§three evil forces,¡¨ a Chinese
expression that refers to separatism, religious extremism and terrorism.
¡§Our police immediately intervened to prevent this and are dealing with it in
accordance with the law,¡¨ the statement said.
Most of the population in Xinjiang, which borders Afghanistan and central Asia,
are Muslim Turkic-speaking Uighurs, many of whom say they have been subjected to
60 years of repressive Chinese Communist Party rule.
Rights groups and Uighur exiles have alleged that China is trying to stoke fears
about terror attacks in Xinjiang as an excuse to crack down on dissent and
justify tight control there ahead of the Olympics in Beijing in August.
In the Khotan unrest, a Uighur exile group said people took to the streets to
protest over a local businessman who died in police custody and against a ban on
women wearing traditional head scarves.
¡§The Uighurs began protesting after the killing of Mutallip Hajim, who had died
in police custody,¡¨ said Alim Seytoff, head of the US-based World Uighur
Congress.
¡§The women were also protesting the ban on head scarves,¡¨ Seytoff said.
The two protests included up to 1,000 demonstrators, he said, adding that as
many as 600 had been detained.
Hajim, a wealthy jade trader and philanthropist, was taken into custody in
Khotan in January, the US government-backed Radio Free Asia said.
But his body was turned over to his family on March 3, with police instructing
them to bury him immediately and inform no one of his death, the station said.
Local police and the religious affairs bureau in Khotan, also known as Hetian,
refused to comment on the protests or Hajim¡¦s case.
China initially raised the alarm over the alleged threat from Xinjiang on March
9 when it said a January raid on ¡§terrorists¡¨ there had foiled a planned attack
directed at the Olympics.
On the same day, it announced a 19-year-old Muslim woman had tried to bomb a
Chinese Southern Airlines flight that had taken off from Urumqi, Xinjiang¡¦s
capital, and was on its way to Beijing.
The Khotan protests came as China was trying to contain unrest on a much larger
scale in Tibet.
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Free Tibet,
Free Taiwan
Thursday, Apr 03, 2008, Page 8
What if the US had invaded Mexico? What if France had occupied Algeria? Or what
if Australia had declared war on Papua New Guinea?
What if Japan had annexed Manchuria? What if Italy were to go back to Libya with
gunboats? What if all of this happened in the year in which the Olympic Games
were to be held in the US, France, Australia, Japan or Italy?
Would the Olympic Games still have gone ahead in these countries? On what
grounds? In the name of the WTO? Globalization? Consumerism?
Humanity owes an enormous debt to Tibet, to its culture and to its inhabitants.
Tibet has been left alone for almost 60 years, and this in the interests of
realpolitik.
It is easy to see why this has happened. If you are big, you are able to go
ahead and invade, destroy and exterminate. And if you are small but you have
petroleum, then it¡¦s deemed to be your own business.
A case in point is Chechnya. Another case in point is Iraq.
¡§Free Tibet. Stop the China Olympic Games.¡¨ Write an e-mail to the UN
secretary-general and help spread the message.
Taiwan should be the first nation to boycott the Olympic Games. Ma Ying-jeou
(°¨^¤E) should do what he promised during his campaign. Do it for your people, for
your own land. It is time to be brave for Taiwan so it won¡¦t be the next Tibet.
Graziano Pia
Italy
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