2010-03-09

Political refugee—a former mayor—collected information for China.

AFP

Stockholm harbor, Jan. 27, 2010.

STOCKLHOLM—A Swedish court has sentenced an ethnic Uyghur refugee to 16 months in prison for spying on fellow Uyghur refugees and passing information to China, according to court documents.

Babur Maihesuti, 62 and a naturalized Swede, was convicted of passing on information from January 2008-June 2009 about the health, travel, and political views of other Uyghurs to a journalist and diplomat who was in fact a Chinese intelligence officer, the Stockholm District Court said.

Babur Maihesuti was found guilty of ”aggravated illegal espionage activity” and sentenced March 8 to 16 months in jail.

The court ruled the espionage was especially serious since Babur Maihesuti had infiltrated the World Uyghur Congress and the information passed on ”could cause significant damage to Uyghurs in and outside China.”

There was also a danger, the court said, that Beijing could use the network in the future for other kinds of espionage.

“’The crime is especially egregious due to the fact that the espionage served a large power that does not fully respect human rights,” the court said.

Jail term criticized

Dilxat Raxit, spokesman for the World Uyghur Congress, called the sentence insufficient and said Babur Maihesuti had claimed that the World Uyghur Congress had asked him to “conduct secret negotiations with China.”

“One year and four months in jail is too short,” Dilxat Raxit said.

“But this is a warning to the Chinese government for their illegal spying on the Uyghur diaspora … and to some Uyghurs who illegally collect information about Uyghur activists to help the Chinese government.”

Babur Maihesuti was born 1948 in Lanzhou and grew up in Tianjin. His father Mehsut was a Uyghur businessman from Hotan, and his mother Amina, a Chinese Hui Muslim, was a housewife. They had nine children.

The family moved to Tianjin in the 1950s, where he attended school.

But Mehsut worried that his children had lost their cultural identity, so the family moved back to Hotan, in what is now the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) of China, in the late 1960s, sources who know the family said.

Babur Maihesuti first worked as a government translator and then became Hotan’s mayor in the 1990s.

He later worked as the director of a state-owned trading company in Kashgar, which allowed him to travel to Kazakstan, Uzbekistan, and Taiwan.

‘A serious crime’

Thomas Lindstrand, the Swedish prosecutor, said in an interview that Babur Maihesuti “didn’t plead guilty, but he was sentenced for the crime he was prosecuted for … intelligence activities.”

“If you consider how much you can possibly sentence a person concerning this crime, it’s a fairly long imprisonment. It’s fairly tough considering the circumstances,” Lindstrand said.

“It’s very difficult to investigate a crime like this. The legal demands to get a conviction are very, very high. Obviously the court has found that it has been proven beyond reasonable doubt that he is guilty, and he has received a sentence. The court also found that it was a … serious kind of unlawful intelligence obtaining. It was a serious crime, a gross crime.”

The data Babur Maihesuti collected was “information about the World Uyghur Congress and what people have said and so on. And information about telephone numbers and addresses, asylum [status] … personal information.”

Long friction

Uyghurs, a distinct and mostly Muslim ethnic group indigenous to Xinjiang, have long complained of religious, political, and cultural oppression under Chinese rule, and tensions have simmered there for years.

Uyghur exiles fear surveillance once they leave China, especially if they have left family behind, and they say their fears have worsened since deadly ethnic riots last July—which prompted a major security crackdown.

Xinjiang has been plagued in recent years by bombings, attacks, and riots that Chinese authorities blame on Uyghur separatists.

Uyghur Sentenced for Spying

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Aikebaerjiang Tuniyaz, 27, left China in March 2009 after serving a one-year jail term in Liudawan prison in Urumqi for allegedly “leaking secret information abroad.”

Tuniyaz, born in Aksu and a graduate of Shanghai Jiaotong University, spoke in 2007 with RFA’s Uyghur service about the shooting of a Uyghur man by Chinese security forces in Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR).

Tuniyaz entered Thailand in early 2009 and sought asylum through the Bangkok office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), where a staff member suggested he might expedite the process by approaching the UNHCR office in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, instead, he said in an earlier interview.

He obtained a visa through the Cambodian embassy in Bangkok and entered Cambodia legally, he said. Tuniyaz was in Cambodia legally when deadly ethnic rioting erupted in Urumqi on July 5 this year.

The 20 Uyghur Muslims deported Saturday under intense Chinese pressure had fled to Cambodia in search of asylum after witnessing and documenting violent ethnic riots in the restive western Chinese region of Xinjiang this summer that left nearly 200 dead.

They had warned the UNHCR that they feared long jail terms or even the death penalty if they were sent back to China, according to statements obtained by The Associated Press.

Tuniyaz had been translating for and staying with the group of 21 Uyghurs in Phnom Penh—two are said to have fled—when the group was detained.

Cambodia said it expelled the Uyghurs because they had illegally entered the country. It has since been sharply criticized by Washington, which said the deportations would harm bilateral ties with the United States, though they may have strengthened relations with Beijing.

On Monday, China signed off on more than U.S. $1.2 billion in aid to Cambodia during a visit there by Vice President Xi Jinping. The assistance, including 14 agreements for grants and loans, ranges from help in building roads to repairing Buddhist temples.

More protests

The European Union said Monday it was “deeply concerned” about Cambodia’s decision to return the group of Uyghurs to China and urged Beijing to respect the rights of the returnees.

On Tuesday, U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture Manfred Nowak slammed the deportations.

“This is a blatant violation of Cambodia’s obligations under the principle of non-refoulement as stipulated in Article 3 of the U.N. Convention Against Torture,” Nowak said in a statement.

Nowak said that he had reports of “severe torture” in Xinjiang following the unrest and that recent executions there violated “the most basic fair trial guarantees.”

“I am calling on the Chinese authorities to treat the 20 persons humanely upon return in accordance with international standards, to grant access to them in case they are detained and to afford them due process guarantees, if charged with criminal offenses”, he added.

U.N. Independent Expert on Minority Issues Gay McDougall called on Beijing to allow U.N. rights envoys to examine ethnic tensions in Xinjiang after the deadly violence there.

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Sent by a witness.

Demonstrators march in Urumqi, July 5, 2009.

PHNOM PENH—China has tightened its southeastern border after several groups of ethnic Uyghurs managed to bribe their way into Vietnam and then Cambodia to avoid possible detention for allegedly taking part in deadly ethnic riots in July, Uyghur sources in Asia say.

The sources, who asked not be to named, said Chinese authorities have detained 31 Uyghurs since Sept. 15 in the southern cities of Shenzhen and Guangzhou and in the central city of Kunming, either for trying to flee the country or for allegedly aiding others in fleeing China.

Twenty-two Uyghurs—a predominantly Muslim minority concentrated in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR)—have sought protection from the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, the sources said.

This group, which includes two young children, paid people to smuggle them across the border from Vietnam into Cambodia, they said.

In addition to the 22 Uyghurs in Cambodia, two Uyghur men were detained in Vietnam as of Oct. 15, after police nabbed them as they tried to cross into Cambodia from Vietnam. Five more Uyghurs remain unaccounted for after they tried to leave China for Vietnam on Oct. 15, the Uyghur sources said.

The UNHCR has no offices in Vietnam, so anyone seeking asylum as a refugee must find a way into Cambodia, where it does operate. Whether the 22 Uyghur asylum-seekers would be permitted to remain in Cambodia was unclear.

UNHCR and Cambodian officials in Phnom Penh declined to comment on the case.

Ethnic clashes described

A map showing China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and the southeast Asian nations of Cambodia and Vietnam.

In statements to the UNHCR in Phnom Penh and seen by RFA’s Uyghur service, two of the asylum-seekers described witnessing the deadly ethnic clashes between Uyghurs and majority Han Chinese in July 2009.

As the clashes wore on, one of the men wrote, “all of the Uyghur protesters were … surrounded by military police … handcuffed … and beaten … with clubs and their guns. The protesters seemed barely alive,” Mutellip Mamut said in his statement.

“The arrested Uyghurs were then thrown into the trucks like they were sacks of rice. Some protesters were also shot dead,” he wrote.

“If I am returned to China I am sure that I will be sentenced to life imprisonment or the death penalty for my involvement in the Urumqi riots, having taken photographs and video footage of the riots and providing this footage to a foreign news reporter.”

Another Uyghur petitioner for asylum described learning of mass detentions of Uyghur males in the wake of the rioting.

A neighbor told him on July 10, Islam Urayim wrote, “that her husband Abdurahman had been arrested by the police as well as two other friends of ours.”

“One of my friends, Mahmut, used to live near where the demonstration took place, and another, Kurban, lived about 300 meters (yards) from my home. She told me every Uyghur male over 16 living in the area had been arrested,” he wrote to the UNHCR.

Difficult choice

“After July 5, there were only two options for me—to risk arrest or escape to another country. I weighed both risks,” Mamut said in an interview.

“If I were detained, I would be executed or die in prison. If I escaped, I might be arrested at the border or sent back to China. Then my ‘crime’ would be worse, and I would surely be executed.”

“I felt that the second option was more secure—so I took the risk of escaping. I don’t know what my fate will be,” Mamut said.

Urayim said separately that he feared living abroad but wanted to tell the world what he witnessed during the July clashes.

“Living abroad is a terrifying thing for me, but I have no choice,” Urayim said.

“The Chinese government is trying to portray the July 5 incident as consisting of assaults, vandalism, looting, and burning—they’re hiding the fact that it started as a demonstration and the demonstrators were holding the Chinese flag,” he said.

“They’re hiding the fact that the police shot at demonstrators, that Uyghurs were killed, and they’re showing only Chinese fatalities to the world. I fled the country so I could do my part in revealing the facts about July 5.”

In addition to Mamut, who was born on July 10, 1980, and Islam Urayim, born July 16, 1980, only two other asylum-seekers agreed to be named. They are Hazirti ali Umar, born June 7, 1990, and Aikebaierjiang Tuniyazi, born Feb. 13, 1982.

Men disappeared

Clashes first erupted between Han Chinese and ethnic Uyghurs on July 5, and at least 200 people were killed, by the government’s tally.

Twelve people have since been sentenced to death in connection with the violence.

New York-based Human Rights Watch 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

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HONG KONG and WASHINGTON—The family home of prominent Uyghur exile leader Rebiya Kadeer in northwestern China has been slated for demolition and her family has been served with an eviction notice, according to residents.

Two businessmen, members of China’s mostly Muslim Uyghur ethnic minority, said officials in northwestern China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) plan to raze the Akida Trade Center, the Rebiya Kadeer Trade Center, and a third smaller building.

The three buildings, located in the regional capital Urumqi, were formerly fully owned by the Kadeer family and are now managed by government authorities. The exiled Rebiya Kadeer currently lives in Washington.

One Uyghur businessman from Gulja (in Chinese, Yining), capital of the Ili Kazakh Prefecture, traveling in Kazakhstan said Urumqi authorities also gave notice of eviction to Uyghur merchants who owned stores in the building.

“Now, Uyghur merchants are forced to rent stores in other buildings owned by Han Chinese. The new buildings offered by the government are more expensive then Rebiya’s buildings, and the buildings are located in an area populated by Han Chinese,” he said.

The businessman said Uyghur merchants are either unable or unwilling to rent space in those areas because of higher tensions between Uyghurs and Han Chinese after violent riots erupted in Urumqi on July 5.

“It is difficult for Rebiya Kadeer’s relatives to find a place to rent in the current situation because Han Chinese hate them and Uyghurs are scared of [renting to] them,” he said.

Ahmetjan, a Uyghur merchant from Atush city in the far West of the remote Tarim Basin, said he had heard that merchants in Kadeer’s buildings were scrambling to prepare for the eviction.

“My uncle had to travel to Urumqi from Atush to find a new location for his business. He had a wholesale store in one of Rebiya’s buildings,” he said in a phone call from Kyrgyzstan, where he was traveling on business.

Thriving business community

Rebiya Kadeer speaking at the Rebiya Kadeer Trade Center, Dec. 15, 1997. Courtesy of the Kadeer family

The Akida Trade Center, which comprises 15 floors and 20,000 square meters of living space, also serves as a residence for Kadeer’s relatives, who draw an income by running a restaurant on the building’s first floor.

A total of 37 family members, including Kadeer’s sister, brothers, and grandchildren, live in the building.

The Kadeer Trade Center has served as the main wholesale center in the XUAR since it was established by Kadeer in 1990.

Several thousand Uyghur merchants have set up shop in both the Rebiya Kadeer Trade Center and the Akida Trade Center.

Both buildings are to be demolished for the construction of a public park, according to the eviction notice.

Local authorities were unavailable for comment.

‘Act of revenge’

Rebiya Kadeer condemned the move by Urumqi authorities as an “act of revenge against me and against Uyghurs over July 5.”

The official Chinese media has branded Kadeer the “mastermind” behind the ethnic riots and regularly accuses her of sponsoring separatist terrorism in the region.

She also voiced concern for her family members, who she said would face difficulty in finding a new source of income and place to live because they have been blacklisted by the government.

“I cannot believe this kind of retaliation—punishing the family members of a political dissident—can still occur in the 21st century. I had thought it was the last act of retaliation when the authorities forced my family to speak out against me on state-owned TV,” Kadeer said.

On Aug. 4, state-controlled television broadcast interviews with Kadeer’s son Kahar, daughter Rushangul and imprisoned son Alim, as well as with Kadeer’s younger brother Mehmet.

Kadeer maintains that her children and brother were compelled to make false accusations about her alleged role in the July 5 unrest.

The day before the interviews aired on television, official news media published a letter that accused Kadeer of having broken her promises not to participate in “ethnic splittism” when she left China.

The letter was signed by her children, their spouses, and five of her grandchildren.

Following her release from prison in 2005, and before her exile to the U.S., Chinese officials warned Kadeer against speaking out on behalf of Uyghurs in China, saying that if she continued to do so her children and businesses would be targeted.

When she later engaged in human rights advocacy in the United States, Chinese officials shut down her businesses and harassed her family members.

Following Kadeer’s election as president of the Uyghur American Association and the Munich-based World Uyghur Congress, her sons Alim and Ablikim were detained and imprisoned for seven and nine years respectively.

“The Chinese will do whatever they can to stop my activities. Making my family homeless is probably just one of the measures they have planned,” she said.

Uyghur buildings razed

Kadeer said the buildings are two of the few remaining in Urumqi that were designed in Uyghur-style architecture.

Buildings with Chinese architecture have taken over the city in recent years.

“The authorities don’t want to see Uyghur-style buildings in the [Xinjiang] capital, and they don’t want to see my name anywhere in the city,” Kadeer said.

Officials began demolishing Uyghur-style buildings in the ancient city of Kashgar, in southwestern Xinjiang, a few months before the July 5 incident in Urumqi.

“They can erase my name from the building by demolishing it, but they cannot erase it from the hearts of my people,” she said.

Kadeer, 60, was a self-made millionaire in China and a favorite of the authorities until she spoke out about Beijing’s heavy-handed treatment of her people, who frequently complain of harassment and discrimination and suffer high unemployment.

She later spent six years in prison for opposing the government and was released into U.S. exile in 2005.

Since the Urumqi unrest, the Chinese government has harshly criticized the governments of Japan and Australia for granting Kadeer visas to travel to their countries on unofficial visits.

It has also attempted to prevent an independent Australian film festival from screening a documentary about Kadeer’s life.

source: 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 4 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.

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The Uyghur leader Rebiya Kadeer has accused the Chinese government of “psychologically torturing” her children, who have written open letters criticizing their mother, and even appeared on national television to accuse her of having instigated Uyghur’s revolt in Urumqi last July.

Speaking with journalists, the Uyghur leader said her daughter Roxingul and her son Alim were forced to accuse her, and bend to the will of Beijing: “The method being used by the Chinese government is perhaps the worst kind of violence against my children! to force them to speak against me … I think that this is a form of dictatorship imposed on them”.

Two days ago, in the early evening the children and the brother of Kadeer appeared on national television news. “The road my mother has chosen leads to a bottomless hole,” said her son Alim, 33, in prison for tax evasion. “With such a strong nation [China], she will fail in her project of separatism.”

A day before the Chinese media gave extensive space to an open letter by her children as they repeated the same accusations that Beijing has laid against Kadeer: of being the cause of the Uyghur revolt in Urumqi and wanting to divide the nation.

The revolts began on July 5, then degenerated into ethnic clashes between Muslim Uyghurs and Chinese Han, which led to the deaths of at least 197 people. China has detained thousands of Uyghurs, but according to Kadeer “in one night” at least 10 thousand people went missing.

“It’s hard for me to imagine what kind of psychological torture they are going through right now,” said the Uyghur leader. “When I was in prison, I was also forced by the Chinese government to say things against my will, in a video posted on a website.”

62 year old Rebiya Kadeer, once a successful businesswoman and member of the Party, fell into disgrace when she began to seek more rights and autonomy for the Uyghur criticizing the government’s policy of colonization. For this she was imprisoned for 5 years. Released in 2005 thanks to international pressure, she now lives in exile in the United States and is a member of the World Uygur Congress.

After a visit to Japan, she has recently arrived in Melbourne to attend the International Film Festival, where a documentary about her life will be shown for the first time.

China initially tried to remove the film from the program, then, faced with a no from organizers, withdrew all Chinese films. In the preceding weeks Beijing also criticized Japan for having given an entry visa to Kadeer and reproached Turkey for having defended the Uyghurs. “China – said the Uyghur leaders – has also put pressure on the United States to curb my activities. I think that because of me, the Chinese government is trying in practice to impose its authoritarianism throughout the world. ”

source: www.speroforum.com

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