For immediate release
November 12, 2007, 6:15 PM EST
Contact: Uyghur Human Rights Project +1 (202) 349 1496
 
According to Xinhua, China’s official new agency, the Intermediate People’s Court of Kashgar has sentenced four Uyghurs to death, and another two to life imprisonment, on charges including engaging in “separatist activities”, “training at a terrorist camp” and “illegally making explosives”. The men were part of a group captured by the People’s Armed Police during a raid on an alleged “terrorist camp” last January near Kosrap on the Pamir Plateau in the southern part of East Turkestan (also known as Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region or XUAR). Two of the men received death sentences with two years’ reprieve.
 
The Uyghur American Association (UAA) unequivocally condemns all acts of violence, but remains unconvinced of the veracity of PRC claims about the Uyghurs targeted in the January raid. To date, PRC authorities have not made public documentation of the alleged terrorist camp, and have produced no video evidence, independent witness statements, or substantiation of the charges from any other source. 
 
“Until these six men can be tried according to international legal norms in a free and transparent court system, we condemn the sentences issued to them,” said Rebiya Kadeer, prominent Uyghur human rights defender and democratic leader of the Uyghur people. “Unfortunately, in the PRC, the legal system is often another tool used to repress anybody who holds views disliked by government authorities.”
 
The Xinhua report described the men as members of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) and stated that they had taken part in “splittist” and “terrorist” activities from August 2005 to January 2007. Although ETIM was listed as a designated foreign terrorist organization by the United States in August 2002, independent scholars and analysts believe the group was listed so that the U.S. could hope to rely on PRC support in the war on terror, and that the group – such as it was – ceased to exist when its purported leader was killed in a skirmish with the Pakistani military in Pakistan in late 2003. The U.S. no longer lists ETIM as a designated foreign terrorist organization.
 
Over the past six years, PRC officials have maneuvered to use the concept of “terrorism” as a justification for their repressive treatment of Uyghurs in East Turkestan and to intimidate Uyghurs who have fled China. The PRC government has placed tremendous emphasis on the threat of “terrorism” in East Turkestan, without providing credible evidence of a threat and used “terrorism” as a justification for a series of “security” campaigns in East Turkestan that have resulted in serious human rights abuses. East Turkestan remains the only part of the People’s Republic of China where people are still executed for non-violent crimes of political opposition to the Chinese state.