Guantanamo to Palau: Uyghurs New Home

Six Uyghur men held for seven years in U.S. military custody at Guantanamo Bay have been released to the tiny Pacific island of Palau which has promised to give them a temporary home for two years.

Radio Free Asia reports the men, were detained as terror suspects but claimed to be religious refugees who had fled persecution in neighboring China.

The case highlights the thorny problem of what to with detainees, some of whom have been held for as long as seven years yet are innocent.

There is concern if they were not radicals before they were detained it is possible harsh treatment and proximity to genuine zealots may have converted them.

Hard Times in Tibet

Getting news out of Tibet remains extraordinarily difficult since the March 2008 uprising that rattled Chinese authorities on the eve of last year’s Beijing Olympics. But now a number of sources are reporting that at least three people have been executed for their roles in the unrest. They would be the first people executed in Tibet in connection with the uprising.

This latest news came from Tibetan exile groups and local sources, and the Chinese authorities so far haven’t said a word. One of the men executed was identified as Lobsang Gyaltsen, age 22 or 23, from Lhasa’s Lubuk township. He was reportedly allowed a last visit from his mother where he asked her to make sure his son was received an education.

A spokesman for an exile group identified the other two people executed as a young woman and a Tibetan youth from Amdo Aba in Sichuan province.

Another source said,“I got information from Lhasa that three Tibetans who were involved in the 2008 protests were executed on Oct. 20, in Lhasa, around 11 a.m.. The Chinese authorities execute Tibetans in secrecy and never reveal details.”

Rioting rocked Lhasa in March last year and spread to Tibetan-dominated regions of western China, causing official embarrassment ahead of the August 2008 Beijing Olympics. Officials say 21 people—including three Tibetan protesters—died in the violence.

Last Thursday, the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) released a report saying at least 670 Tibetans have been jailed in 2009 for activities that include peaceful protest or leaking information abroad. It qualified the number saying it was “a figure certain to be incomplete”

The report says the crackdown concentrated on Tibetan communities, monasteries, nunneries, schools, and workplaces. It noted “security measures intensified in some Tibetan areas” during the 2009 anniversaries of the protests.

By the end of April 2009, TAR courts had sentenced 84 Tibetans to punishments ranging from fixed jail terms to life, as well as to death or death with a two-year reprieve, in connection with the 2008 riots, the CECC report said.

It also detailed a widespread “patriotic education” campaign that requires monks and nuns to pass examinations on political texts, agree that Tibet is historically a part of China, and denounce the Dalai Lama.

“The government has in the past year used institutional, educational, legal and propaganda channels to pressure Tibetan Buddhists to modify their religious views and aspirations.”

Amnesty International says it has documented “a pattern of unfair trials, including a failure on the part of the Chinese authorities to distinguish between individuals engaged in peaceful protests and those perpetrating criminal acts.

Tibetans say the official media never report on executions in Tibet—but they do cover capital punishment and criminal trials in the case of ethnic Uyghurs, who had their own violent run-ins with the authorities earlier this year

Demolition Plan for Kashgar, on the silk road

Are demolition plans destined to improve safety or to eliminate a minority?

Should the Uyghur Guantanamo Detainees be allowed in the United States

A discussion on the New York Times.

The Tibetans you’ve never heard of

Who hasn’t heard of Tibet? And who outside of Asia can even pronounce “Uyghur”?

Millions of Uyghurs (pronounced “WEE-ger”) live in China’s northwesternmost province, Xinjiang. They, like the Tibetans, are a religious as well as an ethnic minority; they have chafed under Beijing’s heavy-handed rule for the last six decades; and Chinese authorities have faced persistent accusations of repression and abuse against them. But the latest news is that Chinese authorities have closed a Web site aimed at promoting understanding between Han Chinese and ethnic Uyghurs following allegations that the site was linked to foreign “extremists,” the site’s owner said.

Uyghurs: Police raid Uyghur houses in Gulja

Qiao Long reports today (translation by Chen Ping):

Police of Xinjiang’s Yining City recently conducted two raids in Alamutuya Village of Yengiyer Township, and found locations where the Uyghurs were allegedly hiding their guns. Seven people were detained.

An employee at the Village Committee in Alamutuya: The detained people belong to the fifth production brigade.

RFA: How many people were detained?

Villager: One from each family.

RFA: Han Chinese or Uyghur?

Villager: Uyghur.

China’s ‘other Tibetans,’ the Uyghurs, stage protests

Several hundred ethnic Uyghurs have staged protests in China’s remote and restive Xinjiang region following the death in custody of a prominent Uyghur businessman and philanthropist. Witnesses report protests at two locations in Khotan prefecture—in Khotan city March 23-24 and Qaraqash county March 23, RFA’s Uyghur service reports. Several hundred protesters were taken into custody, numerous sources said, and security remains tight.

Numerous sources said the demonstrations followed the death in custody of a wealthy Uyghur jade trader and philanthropist, Mutallip Hajim, 38. Police returned his body to relatives March 3 after two months in custody, saying he had died in hospital of heart trouble. According to an authoritative source, police instructed the family to bury him immediately and inform no one of his death.

Uyghurs: China’s anti-porn campaign in Xinjiang

UYGHUR: 100-Day Campaign against “Pornographic Publications” (03/17/08)
Reporter: Kurban Wali

RFA: Dear radio listeners, according to the Tangritagh News Web site of China, Mr. Li Yi, head of the propaganda committee of the Chinese Communist Party’s Xinjiang branch, held a teleconference in Urumqi today, March 17, to organize a 100-day campaign against pornography.

李屹在会议上作了重要讲话，他肯定了过去一年“扫黄打非”取得的成绩，并提出了2008年自治区“扫黄打非”工作总的要求是：高举中国特色社会主义伟大旗 帜，以邓小平理论和“三个代表”重要思想为指导，全面贯彻党的十七大精神，深入落实科学发展观，以打击政治性、宗教类非法出版物为重点，加强日常监管，开 展专项行动，打击侵权盗版行为，开展网上“扫黄打非”斗争，查处非法报刊制售活动，扫除淫秽色情等文化垃圾，全力维护国家安定、社会稳定和文化安全，为新 疆改革、发展、稳定营造良好的文化舆论环境。More here…

During the meeting, Li Yi recognized the achievements of last year’s anti-pornography campaign in Xinjiang, saying that the challenges for 2008 were to hold high the glorious banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and taking Deng Xiaoping thought and the “Three Represents” as a guide, to fully implement the spirit of the 17th Party Congress, to put fully into practice the principles of scientific development, and to concentrate efforts towards cracking down on illegal publications containing religious and political material.

Newsdesk: Uyghurs support Tibetan cause

Many remote areas of the Sichuan, Gansu, and Qinghai plateau are home to large Tibetan populations, many of whom are nomads. Tibet also has an internal border with China’s northwestern region of Xinjiang, home to the Muslim Uyghur ethnic group, who also deeply resent Beijing’s rule. Here, their most prominent opponent of the Chinese regime, speaks out on Tibet for the first time:

The World Uyghur Congress condemns China’s use of military force against the peaceful Tibetan protesters in Lhasa and other provinces, and calls upon Chinese leaders to start constructive negotiations with His Holiness the Dalai Lama to seek a peaceful political solution to the problem.

Uyghurs: On the trail of the Urumqi shooting story

Xinhua news agency tells us that there was a shootout with Uyghur ‘terrorists’ in the regional capital, Urumqi, in which two ‘terrorists’ were killed. (Image: The Opposite End of China)

Chinese police kill two terorists, arrest 15 others

URUMQI, Feb. 18 (Xinhua) — Chinese police destroyed a terrorist gang last month in Urumqi, capital of northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, killing two persons and arresting 15 others, local sources said on Monday.