AFP

Uyghurs at an Internet cafe in Urumqi, capital of China’s northwestern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, April 1, 2008.

HONG KONG—Chinese authorities in the northwestern region of Uyghurs are maintaining tight controls over the Internet and long-distance phone calls, almost four months after ethnic clashes that left nearly 200 people dead.

The curbs appear to come as part of an effort to maintain stability after deadly rioting in July between Han Chinese and ethnic minority Uyghurs in the regional capital, Urumqi.

Uyghurs living in Central Asia, North America, and Europe meanwhile report that they are almost entirely unable to phone, text, or email relatives in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR).

“Communication is a big problem,” an Urumqi branch office manager for the Shen Ou Communications Equipment Co. said.

“We have to use alternative methods like express delivery to send out documents,” said the manager, who asked to be identified by his surname, Cao.

He said many Urumqi-based companies have now relocated to neighboring Gansu province, more than 1,000 kms (620 miles) away, where there is still a reliable Internet connection.

“Many companies have moved their offices from Urumqi to places like Lanzhou, in Gansu,” Cao said. “We communicate with them by telephone and fax.”

He said he is hoping that the Internet will return to normal in Urumqi by the end of the year.

“If we are not online, people cannot find us,” he said.

In a report Oct. 29, the nonprofit press freedom group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said its survey had found more than 85 percent of Web sites dedicated to the Uyghur community—in Uyghur, Mandarin, and English—were “blocked, censored, or otherwise unreachable” in Xinjiang.

The RSF survey in October examined around 100 Uyghur Web sites, portals, forums, blogs, and other kinds of online platforms.

Texting unreliable

An Urumqi-based Han Chinese office worker surnamed Zhang said that telephone networks, both fixed-line and mobile, are also often unreliable.

“Text messages cannot be sent out, and we cannot surf the Internet either. There is simply no Internet connection,” she said.

“Internet companies have suffered big losses. Xinjiang is going to be left behind again as a result of this,” she said.

An employee at an Internet telephony service provider in Urumqi confirmed that they had suffered huge losses following the riots.

“Our company’s service was immediately shut down,” he said. “No Internet service is running. The losses were big.”

Internet-based service providers have suffered the most during the information lockdown, according to a second local employee, surnamed Zhang.

“Those who depend on the Internet to do business don’t know what to do,” he said.

New law passed

One businessman said he is hanging on in Urumqi, trying to conduct his foreign trade business out of the offices of the Xinjiang Council for the Promotion of Trade.

After pulling the plug on the entire region’s Internet and phone services in the immediate wake of the violence in July, the Xinjiang authorities passed a law making it a criminal offense to discuss separatism on the Internet.

Xinjiang’s People’s Congress Standing Committee passed the “Information Promotion Bill” banning people in the region from using the Internet in any way that undermines national unity, incites ethnic separatism, or harms social stability.

Armed police now stand guard in public places around the XUAR and are detaining anyone found with footage of ethnic riots in July.

According to a 26-year-old American blogger living in Xinjiang, Dunhuang city in neighboring Gansu has become a mecca for businessmen from Xinjiang.

“Pretty much the first city outside of Xinjiang with Internet access, Dunhuang has become the place for all businessmen and foreigners to go to regain access to email and business contacts,” he wrote in an Oct. 19 posting.

“Hotels and coffee shops tell me they’ve seen a noticeable increase in Xinjiang traffic,” he wrote.

Long history

Urumqi residents have frequently reported being cut off from the outside world entirely, as the authorities block media and social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

Officials say terrorists, separatists, and religious extremists used the Internet, telephones, and mobile text messages to spread rumors and hatred during the ethnic violence, sparking one of the most comprehensive Internet shutdowns ever reported.

Clashes first erupted between Han Chinese and ethnic Uyghurs on July 5. Twelve people have since been sentenced to death in connection with the violence, which was the worst the country has experienced in decades.

New York-based Human Rights Watch last week said it has documented the disappearances of 43 men and boys in the Xinjiang region, but that the actual number of disappearances is likely far higher.

Police have meanwhile detained more than 700 people in connection with the unrest, according to earlier state news reports.

Uyghurs, a distinct and mostly Muslim ethnic group, have long complained of religious, political, and cultural oppression by Chinese authorities, and tensions have simmered in the Xinjiang region for years.

www.rfa.org

ABOUT HUMAN RIGHTS IN EAST TURKISTAN Uyghur Foundation Stichting Oeigoeren Nederland Stichting Uighur Jurat Barat  Stichting Uyghur Oost-Turkestan Uyghur Logo Nederlanders Holland Europe HUMAN RIGHTS  Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region Erkin Alptekin Rebiya Kadeer

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HONG KONG—Relatives of a man who died in police custody in China’s remote Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region are in a tense standoff with authorities over their demand for an inquiry into how he died, villagers and the local police chief said.

One villager, contacted by telephone, said eight trucks of soldiers and two other armed vehicles had surrounded the man’s family home in Lengger [in Chinese, Langan] village in Qorghas [in Chinese, Huocheng]county, Ili prefecture.

Surrounding streets were blockaded, and another witness said police told him to remain inside when he tried to walk several blocks to Tursun’s family home.

“The police are asking us to bury the body early in the morning, otherwise they said they will bury him themselves,” Haji Memet, a relative of Shohret Tursun, 31, said. “We want to find out how he was killed.”

“We are asking the authorities to investigate—we want photos taken of his bruised body, we want justice, we want whoever killed our son to be punished,” he said.

Police returned Tursun’s body to his family at 2 p.m. Saturday, relatives said.

Deadly violence

Tursun, a member of the Uyghur ethnic minority, was among some 40 men from Qorghas detained around the time of deadly protests July 5 in the regional capital, Urumqi.

The protests by Uyghurs, a largely Muslim Turkic people, followed alleged official mishandling of earlier ethnic clashes in far-away Guangdong province.

The July 5 protest sparked days of deadly rioting in Urumqi, pitting Uyghurs against majority Han Chinese, and ending with a death toll of almost 200, by the government’s tally.

Badly disfigured

The Langer police chief, who identified himself as Enver, said police were trying to convince the family to bury Tursun early Sunday.

The village imam, Alim Kari, described Tursun’s body as badly disfigured but said he was required to urge the family to bury Tursun.

“I saw the dead body—it was bruised and dark all over,” Kari said. “All the family was crying…his mother was slapping herself. The whole neighborhood is in chaos.”

“I don’t know how the body was injured, how it has so many bruises. The authorities are asking the imam, the elders, relatives, and neighbors to persuade the family to bury him. I am a peasant and I don’t know much about the law.”

“I have to do what the government asks me to do…and I have to believe them. We are working hard to persuade the family to bury Shohret Tursun early Sunday morning,” Kari said.

“After the family’s strong opposition, the authorities agreed to bury him Sunday morning. This has been confirmed and the funeral attendants have been selected and invited,” he said.

Earlier death alleged

About 10 days ago, relatives said, Tursun—along with Pazilat Akbar, Rabigul, Eli Hesenjan, and more than 35 others—were transferred from Urumqi to the Qorghas county jail.

Another villager, also contacted by telephone, said another man, 22-year-old Dilshat Ismayil, was beaten to death by police July 29 after he ran away from police trying to detain him.

That account couldn’t immediately be confirmed.

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.

Xinjiang is a strategically crucial vast desert territory that borders Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India.

The region has abundant oil reserves and is China’s largest natural gas-producing region.

www.rfa.org

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In recent months, two local governments in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) published reports on the government and Communist Party-led political training of Muslim women religious figures known as büwi. (Büwi is a Uyghur word transliterated in the Chinese-language reports cited here as buwei. See the next paragraph for more information on the term.) According to an April 24 report on the Peyziwat (Jiashi) county (Kashgar district) government Web site, government and Communist Party officials in Yéngi Mehelle (Yingmaili) township gathered the büwi of 10 local villages for training in government and Party policy toward religion and to sign a pledge to “uphold stability.” Based on the pledge, the women will refrain from “wearing veils or long dresses, teaching religious texts to students, and forcing other individuals to participate in religious activities.” As part of efforts to train all religious figures in rotation over a four-year period, the Bayangol Mongol Autonomous Prefecture in the XUAR already has provided training to 100 büwi, according to a June 4 report on the prefectural government Web site.

Some of the Chinese reports (including the Bayangol report discussed above as well as reports in the following paragraphs) define büwi as women who wash corpses and perform religious rites at the homes of the deceased. The term also broadly encompasses Muslim women with a level of religious knowledge who are able to read the Quran and provide religious instruction. (Information based on CECC staff interview. See also basic definitions in the Yulghun dictionary.) For a description of büwi specifically as “Women Sufi ritualists,” see an article on the “Music of the Uyghurs” by scholars Rachel Harris and Yasin Muhpul, posted on the Web site of the London Uyghur Ensemble.

The recent information on training büwi follows a proposal from the 2nd meeting of the 10th XUAR People’s Political Consultative Conference (XUAR PPCC), initiated by the Vice-Chairwoman of the XUAR Women’s Federation and dated December 23, 2008, on bringing büwi under government and Party management, according to a copy of the proposal posted April 2, 2009, on the XUAR PPCC Web site. The proposal states that büwi have existed in a “no-man’s land” without state oversight and calls for taking advantage of the women’s social status to spread the Party’s religious and ethnic policies among Muslim women. The proposal also states that failing to capitalize on büwi’s status to disseminate Party policy could permit “hostile elements within and outside of [China’s] borders” to use religious and ethnic customs to “carry out infiltration activities among women.” The proposal adds that in some ethnic minority areas, where “a religious atmosphere is comparatively strong,” women believers are devout and their thinking is “ignorant, lacking common sense and reason,” thus making them vulnerable to infiltration by the “three forces” of terrorism, separatism, and religious extremism. It also cites cases of such forces “using” büwi to carry out “illegal sermonizing activities.” In addition, the proposal expresses concern that in some areas, some ethnic minority women “still” wear face coverings and clothing with a “pronounced religious hue.” Moreover, many rural women believers have “limited social interaction,” “relatively weak capacity for distinguishing right from wrong,” and are susceptible to being “incited” or “misled” by “bad people.”

The proposal lists four measures to address the “problem” of lack of oversight of büwi and risks of “infiltration” by hostile forces. First, it calls for drawing büwi under official supervision so that büwi can aid in activities such as “educating women to differentiate lawful religious activities” from illegal ones and to differentiate “the bounds of ethnic social customs and religious activities.” In addition, büwi working in this capacity can report on religious activities and the state of women’s thinking to Party authorities and help curb cases of women’s participation in “illegal religious activities” and “underground sermonizing activities.” Second, the proposal recommends a system whereby büwi voluntarily apply for training and under which applications are vetted by the state-controlled Islamic associations at local levels. Under this system, preferred applicants are to be “politically reliable” and possess a “definite level of culture and knowledge of religious texts.” Third, the proposal calls for organizing an administrative body under the lead of the United Front Work Department–the Communist Party organization that among other things oversees religious communities in China–and including offices such as the public security bureau, women’s federations, Islamic associations, and ethnic and religious affairs offices. Finally, the proposal outlines the content of training, which includes studying such texts as “Definitions of 23 Types of Illegal Religious Activities” and conveying information on appropriate procedures for Muslim funerals. (See a copy of the “Definitions of 23 Types of Illegal Religious Activities” posted February 2, 2008, on the Chinggil (Qinghe) county, Altay district, Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture government Web site.) (See also a condensed text similar to the proposal on büwi submitted as a suggestion at the 2nd meeting of the 10th XUAR PPCC, posted January 12, 2009, on the Web site of the XUAR PPCC.)

Although political consultative conferences have an advisory function and their proposals do not carry binding legislative force, the XUAR PPCC proposal may reflect a trend in increasing efforts to regulate the activities of büwi in the XUAR. (See a description of the national Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), posted March 4 on the China Daily Web site, and an undated introduction on the Web site of the National Committee of the CPPCC for background information on CPPCC proposals.) The proposal also underscores the role that women’s federations have played in serving as a bridge for government and Party policy in areas such as religious oversight and anti-separatism campaigns. See, for example, an April 7 report from Toqsu (Xinhe) county, Aqsu district (via Xinjiang Peace Net), describing “outstanding problems” in “bizarre” women’s apparel and noting that an expert invited by the XUAR Women’s Federation provided a “correct interpretation” of the Quran’s views toward women’s clothes. See also information in a previous CECC analysis on the role of a prefectural women’s federation in carrying out anti-separatism activities among women.

The Commission also has found reports of steps to train or supervise büwi and other people described as corpse washers prior to the late 2008 and 2009 proposal and reports. See, for example, 2007 reports from Chira, Lop, and Niye (Minfeng) counties, all within Hoten district (reports all via the Hoten district government Web site), describing steps by women’s federations through which female party cadres engage in “talks” with female corpse washers. Also in 2007, Yopurgha (Yuepuhu) county in Kashgar district trained 38 büwi and other personnel who wash corpses to inform villages about “legal” religious behavior and the Party’s religious policy, according to a report that year from the Yopurgha government Web site. In June 2007, the Maytagh (Dushanzi) district government in Qaramay city included corpse washers in classes about the “reactionary nature” of the “Islamic Liberation Party,” according to a report that month from the district government Web site.

The late 2008 and 2009 reports on the training of büwi come during a period of heightened controls over religion in the region implemented as part of broader security and anti-separatism campaigns. See previous Commission analysis (1, 2) for details. For more information on conditions in the XUAR, see section IV–Xinjiang, in the CECC 2008 Annual Report.

more info: www.cecc.gov

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