Tag: Eastern Turkistan

  • Uyghur Evictee Detained

    Uyghur Evictee Detained

    2010-08-10

    Chinese authorities hold an elderly Uyghur farmer in Beijing.

    RFA

    Abdurehim Mollek says his land in Onsu county was sold to a resettled Han Chinese farmer by local officials.

    HONG KONG-Authorities in Beijing are holding an 84-year-old Uyghur farmer after he traveled to the capital to lodge an official protest over the loss of his farmland, the man and his son said.

    Abdurehim Mollek, a Muslim Uyghur from Aksu prefecture in the troubled northwestern region of Xinjiang, was being held by police after being taken from his motel room in the eastern Beijing suburb of Weigongcun, he said.

    Traveling with his 29-year-old son, Abdurehim Mollek said Sunday he had already been detained without trial for two years by authorities in Aksu’s Onsu (in Chinese, Wensu) county after he tried to petition over the actions of local officials.

    “We are in the Xinjiang Affairs Department’s motel with dozens of other Uyghur petitioners. I am allowed go out to the yard of the motel, but my father is not. There are two guards at the motel door who are always watching us. Probably in the next few days the police will come from Aksu to return us there,” his son said.

    “The Xinjiang Affairs Department usually holds us until the local officials come to take us away. That’s how it has worked most of the previous 10 times,” he said, referring to earlier trips his father had made to Beijing to petition.

    Abdurehim Mollek’s son said they had been planning to petition publicly at Tiananmen Square or at an international news bureau to make their voices heard.

    An officer who answered the phone at the Wanshousi police station in Beijing confirmed Abdurehim Mollek’s detention.

    “Yes, yes, that’s right … He is a petitioner. It says so in the system,” the officer said. “The system has identified him as a key petitioner.”

    Taken from motel

    He described their detention Monday by regular police officers at their motel in the capital.

    “Three Beijing policemen came to our motel room in the morning [at 9 a.m.] and checked our documents,” Abdurehim Mollek’s son said.

    “Abdurehim Mollek showed the police our IDs and papers about our case. Then the police took us to their office.”

    “They asked no questions and conducted no investigation. We were not allowed to have any food to eat. We were finally released at 6 p.m.,” he said.

    The father and son were placed in the custody of two police officers, a Uyghur and Han Chinese, who brought them to the Xinjiang Affairs Department and placed them, under guard, in a motel room at the department’s headquarters.

    “Regardless of whether the authorities agree to solve our problem, we will stay here. If we go back [to our hometown], we might be detained or sentenced. The last time [my father] was brought back home, he was detained in a mental hospital for 60 days. [The police said] if we petition again, we will be detained in a mental hospital permanently,” his son said.

    Years of petitioning

    Abdurehim Mollek has been petitioning ever since local officials in Kizil [in Chinese, Qingnian] village took over 220 mu (36 acres) of his farmland in 1997.

    His property was part of a total 3,000 mu (494 acres) of land which belonged to 20 Uyghur farmers, taken by local officials and sold to a Chinese farmer surnamed Chen who had recently settled in the village from another province.

    The land was later resold to another Chinese farmer surnamed Lu, who is the current owner.

    Abdurehim Mollek said the two Chinese farmers are close relatives of village chief Han Guoming, although calls to the village office to confirm this went unanswered.

    After being provided only a portion of his promised compensation, Abdurehim Mollek petitioned local and provincial authorities for 10 years.

    In 2007, he began to petition the central government and has since traveled to Beijing 11 times to plead his case.

    In 2008, he was held without trial in a detention center in Onsu county for two years. His most recent visit to Beijing was his second trip in three months, and the second since his release.

    After his previous trip to the capital, Abdurehim Mollek was forcibly repatriated to Aksu prefecture and held in a local mental hospital for 60 days.

    He has been returned to Xinjiang under police guard nearly every time he has petitioned the central government.

    Other petitioners targeted

    Mamut Rozi, a Uyghur from Yarkent county, in Xinjiang’s western Kashgar prefecture, is also currently in Beijing petitioning the central government over the forced sale of his land by local officials to a resettled Chinese farmer.

    In a telephone interview, Mamut Rozi said he feared being forcibly repatriated to Yarkent by local authorities.

    Two of his Uyghur roommates in Beijing were arrested by Xinjiang provincial police and taken to Aksu prefecture.

    The roommates, former workers at an Aksu sugar factory, had been chosen as representatives by a group of 200 workers recently fired by the plant to petition authorities in the capital over the loss of their jobs.

    “[The police] said to my roommates, ‘Why are you organizing others to petition? Why don’t you just take care of your own case? We’re arresting you for illegal organizing,’” Mamut Rozi said.

    “I couldn’t hold back my tears as I saw them handcuffed by the police.”

    ‘Cause for concern’

    Dilxat Raxit, spokesman for the Munich-based World Uyghur Congress, said petitioners like Abdurehim Mollek are highly vulnerable to arbitrary detentions by Beijing authorities if they try to complain about their local government in the capital.

    “And after they get sent back [to Xinjiang] they become a real cause for concern,” Raxit said.

    “Every time a Uyghur is sent back to Xinjiang, they are either sentenced to labor camp, or they suffer some kind of economic punishment.”

    Dilxat Raxit said this is routine. “All Uyghurs in this situation who get sent back home end up suffering for it to a greater or lesser degree.”

    “Many petitioners who travel to Beijing to complain from all over China are picked up by officials from their hometowns, who run representative offices in the capital for this purpose, and are escorted back home, where they can face beatings, surveillance, and further detention.

    China’s army of petitioners say they are repeatedly stonewalled, detained in “black jails,” beaten, and harassed by authorities if they try to take a complaint against local government actions to a higher level of government.

    Millions of Uyghurs—a distinct, Turkic minority who are predominantly Muslim—populate Central Asia and Xinjiang.

    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.

    Those frustrations erupted in July 2009 in deadly riots that left nearly 200 people dead, by the Chinese government’s tally.

    Chinese authorities blame Uyghur separatists for a series of deadly attacks in recent years and accuse one group in particular of maintaining links to the al-Qaeda terrorist network.

    Original reporting in Uyghur by Shohret Hoshur and in Mandarin by Qiao Long. Translated by Luisetta Mudie and Shohret Hoshur. Written in English by Joshua Lipes and Luisetta Mudie.

    https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/farmer-08092010142338.html

  • Xinjiang – Where China’s Worry Intersects the World

    Xinjiang – Where China’s Worry Intersects the World

    The recent killing of a Uighur terrorist in Afghanistan has brought new focus on the ethnic group in China’s western border region.of Xinjiang. The situation of the Uighurs – an ethnic Turkic, Muslim minority – reveals much about China’s internal conduct and external worries, according to China expert Christopher M. Clarke. Hailing from Xinjiang province, Uighurs have seen their majority in that province erode and income inequality expand as Beijing populated the area with Han Chinese and supported the growth of state-owned enterprises. There is little wonder that violence erupts in the province. But even without such violence, China would still be leery of developments in Xinjiang, which borders a number of unstable Central Asian states as well as Pakistan, India, and Afghanistan. Plus, the province hosts vast natural resource wealth and many nuclear testing installations. Any one of these situations could add to the vulnerability of the province. China has attempted to ease tensions in the region, cooperating with neighbors over natural resource exploration. But the US military presence in Afghanistan adds a further wrinkle to an already crumpled tapestry. In the end, Xinjiang is likely to remain a sore spot for Beijing as it worries about pressure from all sides regionally and tries to dampen unrest internally. – YaleGlobal

    Xinjiang – Where China’s Worry Intersects the World

    Regional instability adds to concerns about restive Muslim minority

    Christopher M. ClarkeYaleGlobal , 19 March 2010

    Boiling anger: A Uighur protester confronts Chinese security forces in Urumqi, July, 2009.

    WASHINGTON: The February 15 killing of militant Uighur leader Abdul Haq al-Turkistani by an American drone in the border regions of Pakistan highlights China’s continued sensitivity about its remote and vulnerable western region, Xinjiang. It also brings into focus the role of the Afghanistan-Pakistan region as an international sanctuary for Islamic militants and the reasons for China’s worries about social stability and potential terrorist threats in Xinjiang. China’s neuralgia about security in Xinjiang will continue – and perhaps even increase – as big power competition for influence and resources in Central Asia and its ties to the rest of the world continue to expand.

    China’s troubles with the minority Uighurs are not new. But with the break up of the Soviet Union and the rising Islamist Taliban in once Soviet-occupied Afghanistan, the regional dynamic has changed. Since the early 1990s, China has faced recurrent waves of unrest in Xinjiang and widespread acts of violence, some of which seem to have been terrorist acts by disgruntled Uighurs. The 2008 attempted hijacking of an airplane in China by three people armed with flammable liquid was one of the latest – and scariest – examples. There also have been several attacks against perceived Uighur collaborators in China and against Chinese interests outside the country. The capture of Uighurs fighting against coalition forces in Afghanistan, some two dozen of whom were imprisoned in Guantanamo, also indicate that China faces a real threat of terrorist acts against its interests at home and abroad.

    China’s neuralgia about security in Xinjiang will continue as big power competition for influence and resources in Central Asia and its ties to the rest of the world continue to expand.

    The Chinese, however, have aroused skepticism by dubiously attributing dozens of explosions and incidents of civil unrest to instigation by “East Turkistan terrorist forces.”   Officials, for example, blamed an August 2008 attack on a military police unit out for its morning jog, in which 16 officers were killed, on a Uighur terrorist group, despite the fact that the officers apparently were run down by a truck and attacked by a taxi driver and a vegetable vendor, hardly the modus operandi of a sophisticated terrorist organization. Even last July’s massive race riot in Urumqi – set off by rumors that a Uighur woman had been raped and several Uighur men killed by Han Chinese in far-away Guangdong – was labeled as an “organized, violent action against the public” and an act of terrorism.

    So, while China does face periodic upsurges in politically motivated violence by Uighurs, one has to ask, why? The answer: Beijing has engaged in a systematic, multi-decade program of marginalizing Uighurs in their own homeland, fostering economic growth that favors the Han majority of eastern China and that encourages the exploitation of Xinjiang’s wealth of natural resources for Han areas. Beijing has organized and encouraged an influx of Han into Xinjiang, changing the ethnic ratio since 1949 from about 5 percent Han to more than 40 percent today. Moreover, Uighur culture and the Muslim religion are contained under tight restrictions. Beijing proudly points out that Xinjiang in recent years has been among the fastest growing economies in the country, with per capita income higher than all regions except China’s southeast coast. Most of that growth, however, has accrued to State-owned enterprises, Han entrepreneurs, or the government; not to Uighurs. And income inequalities there have actually expanded significantly in recent years. The region also suffers from some of the worst environmental degradation in China. It is hardly surprising that frustration occasionally boils over into civil unrest – or that such conditions breed terrorist groups intent on taking action against the regime. 

    Beijing has engaged in a systematic, multi-decade program of marginalizing Uighurs in their own homeland, fostering economic growth that favors the Han majority.

    That many of China’s problems with terrorism and unrest are largely of its own making has reduced international trust and sympathy for the situation. China’s concerns also have both shaped its approach to the broader region and reduced China’s willingness to cooperate with the US in counter-terrorism, negatively affecting the overall US -China relationship.

    Xinjiang, more than any other area of China, is strategically vulnerable, partially as a result of its location in one of the most fractious neighborhoods outside the Middle East. Representing one-sixth of China’s territory, Xinjiang is rich in oil, gas, and mineral deposits and contains numerous sensitive military installations, including some of the country’s premier nuclear research and testing facilities. It borders the former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, all of which are less than politically stable.*

    Complicating China’s relations with the Central Asian states is the fact that as many as 500,000 Uighurs – and sizable populations of other Chinese “minorities” – live across relatively porous borders and engage in extensive trade and contacts. Several of these countries contain anti-China Uighur separatist organizations, both peaceful and terrorist. And China is very afraid of the potential contagion of “color revolutions” from Central Asia – like the 2005 “Tulip Revolution” in Kyrgyzstan – destabilizing China’s control in Xinjiang. Uighur activities – including violent attacks – have complicated China’s relations with Turkey, a country with which China seeks closer relations but where public and official sentiment is highly critical of China’s treatment of the ethnically-related Uighurs.

    Xinjiang, more than any other area of China, is strategically vulnerable, partially as a result of its location in one of the most fractious neighborhoods outside the Middle East.

    To control this potentially chaotic situation and to manage Sino-Russian competition for influence, China launched the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which includes Russia, China, the Central Asian republics, and a growing number of observers from around the region. China has pushed hard to keep the focus of the SCO on cooperative activities against the “three evils” of “separatism, fundamentalism, and terrorism,” a fear all the member states have in common. 

     Along some of Xinjiang’s most remote and sensitive borders are Tibet, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the disputed state of Kashmir – any one of which could quickly embroil China in an international crisis. China also tested its “all-weather” friendship with Pakistan pressuring Islamabad to crackdown on Uighur militants seeking refuge in Pakistan. Pakistan reportedly has responded by sending a number of Uighur militants to China for prosecution. Its recent stepped up attacks on terrorist groups – and especially the killing of Abdul Haq and more than a dozen other Uighur militants –  has among other things assuaged relations with China.

    The US intervention in Afghanistan in October 2001 introduced another variable of vulnerability for China with regard to Xinjiang.

    The US intervention in Afghanistan in October 2001 introduced another variable of vulnerability for China with regard to Xinjiang. In the conflict that followed, global support for Al Qaeda drew in more militants to the region, including some Uighurs (as Abdul Haq’s death proved) but it also changed the strategic landscape for China. The introduction of massive US forces into the region, and especially the use of bases such as Manas in Kyrgyzstan, raised visceral and long-standing fears of encirclement by a hostile US intent on “dividing and Westernizing” China. Beijing has put pressure on Central Asian neighbors to expel or severely limit any US military presence and has refused to allow US forces to use Chinese territory for staging or overflights in the war in Afghanistan. China is also working hard to enhance cooperation with its neighbors on energy exploration, exploitation, and transportation as a way of keeping the US and Russia from monopolizing Central Asia’s voluminous oil and natural gas resources.

    These competing interests, and the residual worry that the US and Russia seek to supplant or minimize Chinese influence in Central Asia will continue to contribute to Beijing’s neuralgia about assuring stability in its far Western extremity, even if the real terrorist threat to China has diminished.

    * Beijing is some 1,500 miles from Xinjiang’s capital, Urumqi; Urumqi is nearly another 700 miles from Kashgar on the far Western border. By contrast, Kashgar is only 250 miles from Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan and 500 miles from Kabul.
    ——————————————————
    Dr. Clarke is an independent China consultant. He retired in 2009 after 25 years as a China analyst and head of the China Division of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research. 

  • Uyghur Diaspora Faces Government Pressure in Kyrgyzstan

    Uyghur Diaspora Faces Government Pressure in Kyrgyzstan

    Publication: Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 6 Issue: 156
    August 13, 2009 12:25 PM Age: 1 days
    By: Erica Marat

     

    On August 10, Kyrgyz authorities detained Dilmurat Akbarov, the leader of the Ittipak Uyghur society, and his deputy Jamaldin Nasyrov. These leaders had organized demonstrations calling for an independent investigation into last month’s riots in Xinjiang. They featured images and posters accusing Beijing of implementing cruel policies against Uyghurs in Xinjiang. According to the Kyrgyz authorities, approximately 500 people participated in the event in Bishkek (www.akipress.kg, August 10).

    The exact reasons for the arrests on August 10 remain unknown, since the government has avoided making any official statements. Many experts in Bishkek believe that these arrests demonstrate the Kyrgyz government’s agreement with Beijing’s policies. The arrested leaders are likely to be released soon, but their future activity based on criticizing the Chinese government will be discouraged.

    Over 50,000 ethnic Uyghurs live in Kyrgyzstan, but unofficial records claim that the actual number is much higher. Demonstrations against Beijing’s policy in Xinjiang took place in Almaty and Bishkek in July, but received little attention from the local media.

    Ittipak strived to maintain constructive relations with the Kyrgyz regime. The organization is part of the Peoples’ Assembly of Kyrgyzstan, a government body uniting different ethnic minorities. Its former leader Nigmat Bazakov was killed in 2000, allegedly by his enemies who disagreed with his overly-loyal relations with the Kyrgyz regime. At this time China’s influence within Central Asia was becoming more noticeable, according to Rustam Mukhamedov, a New-York based expert. Since then, local reports on Uyghur separatist and terrorist organizations have saturated the local media, while the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) quickly turned into a regional guarantor of security. China and Russia, both facing separatist movements at home, are the SCO’s leading members.

    Bishkek has consistently complied with Beijing’s directives in relation to the Uyghur diaspora. Mukhamedov said that Ittipak is under the close scrutiny of the interior ministry. The August 10 demonstrations were not allowed before the recent presidential election. They were also sanctioned to take place in the outskirts of Bishkek. While only two hours were allocated for the demonstrations, the activists were arrested within the first hour, halting the entire event. Ittipak leaders’ harsh criticism of Beijing’s policies expressed at the August 10 demonstrations came as a surprise to the Kyrgyz authorities. As one Kyrgyz expert told Jamestown, the top ranks of the Peoples’ Assembly of Kyrgyzstan, in which Ittipak is a member, are likely to be sacked soon for allowing these anti-Chinese demonstrations to take place.

    As Chinese influence in Kyrgyzstan increased, Ittipak struggled to balance its image between supporting the Uyghur legacy and avoiding being labeled as an extremist organization. This prompted its leaders to publicly express their support for the regime. According to Akbarov, the diaspora supports Kyrgyzstan’s development by organizing charity work, helping veterans and the victims of earthquakes, and promoting the incumbent government (www.ittipak.biz). Most of Ittipak’s initiatives are funded through contributions by local Uyghur businessmen.

    Ittipak hopes to celebrate its twentieth anniversary this year. In 2004, the diaspora encountered difficulties in commemorating its fifteenth anniversary. Since then, Ittipak members have avoided mentioning their ideas in the mass media about the unity of the Uyghur peoples across Central Asia and Western China. Due to the August 10 demonstrations, this year’s celebrations are also likely to fail, further complicating the Kyrgyz regime’s relations with the Uyghur diaspora.

    Both former president Askar Akayev and the incumbent Kurmanbek Bakiyev have utilized the Peoples’ Assembly to promote support for the government among the country’s ethnic minorities. Local diasporas were allowed some freedom to stage cultural events and preserve their customs and traditions, but were equally expected to support the regime. In this way, Ittipak also supported Bakiyev in the July 23 election, convincing Uyghurs in Kyrgyzstan to vote for him (www.ittipak.biz, June 2). Likewise, the leaders of other ethnic minorities such as the Dungans and Koreans are forced to maintain friendly relations with the regime.

    As a member of the SCO, Kyrgyzstan is under strong geopolitical pressure from its larger neighbors. The diaspora was officially warned by the Kyrgyz government to avoid undermining Kyrgyzstan’s relations with China (www.akipress.kg, August 10). Ombudsman Tursunbek Akun promised to investigate the arrest of the Ittipak activists, but he suggested that the movement must terminate its demonstrations.

    Last month’s riots in Xinjiang revealed strong sentiments among Central Asian Uyghurs about their shared history and identity. Consequently, family ties were rediscovered between the Uyghurs in Kyrgyzstan and China. “The majority of Uyghurs have relatives back in East Turkistan. Therefore, people are worried about their relatives,” Mukhamedov told Jamestown.

    https://jamestown.org/program/uyghur-diaspora-faces-government-pressure-in-kyrgyzstan/

  • Kyrgyzstan Uyghur Leaders Detained After Protest

    Kyrgyzstan Uyghur Leaders Detained After Protest

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    Ethnic Uyghur women grab at a riot police officer as they protest in Urumqi in China’s far west Xinjiang Province in July

    August 10, 2009

    BISHKEK (Reuters) — Kyrgyzstan police have detained two Uyghur community leaders after they accused China of “state terrorism” at a rally and called for an independent investigation of last month’s clashes in neighboring Xinjiang.

    About 500 Uyghurs gathered at a building on the outskirts of the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek on August 10 with photographs posted to the walls showing what they said was abuse of their kinfolk in China.

    The pictures portrayed people being beaten up and held at gunpoint, as well as depicting unconscious or dead people lying in the streets.

    In Xinjiang’s worst ethnic unrest in decades, Uyghurs staged protests in the regional capital Urumqi on July 5 after two Uyghurs were killed in a clash at a factory in south China in June.

    The violence left 197 people dead and more than 1,600 wounded, mostly Han Chinese who launched revenge attacks in Urumqi days later, according to the Chinese government.

    About 1,000 people, mostly Uyghurs, have been detained in a government crackdown.

    “The Chinese started mass pogroms on June 26, scores of people have been killed, but the Chinese government is concealing those facts,” Dilmurat Akbarov, the head of local Uyghur society Ittipak [Unity], told a meeting.

    “We demand that those responsible are punished.”

    People in the crowd chanted “Freedom to Uyghurs” and banners reading “We accuse China of state terrorism against the Uyghur people” hung on the walls.

    The police did not interfere but detained Akbarov and his deputy Zhamaldin Nasyrov after the protest was over.

    Kyrgyzstan’s ombudsman Tursunbek Akun, who was present at the rally, told reporters Akbarov and Nasyrov were held for staging a rally not sanctioned by the government.

    https://www.rferl.org/a/Kyrgyzstan_Uyghur_Leaders_Detained_After_Protest/1796440.html

  • MASSACRE IN EASTERN TURKISTAN by Hasan Celal Guzel

    MASSACRE IN EASTERN TURKISTAN by Hasan Celal Guzel

    Columnist Hasan Celal Guzel comments on the unrest in China’s Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. A summary of his column is as follows:

    “Do you know what place, outside Turkey itself, has the world’s largest Turkish population? Eastern Turkistan… There are nearly 38 million Uighur Turks living in eastern Turkistan now, despite the genocidal policies they have faced. The Uighur Turks are the grandchildren of a great culture and civilization which established the Hun, Gokturk, Uighur and Karahanli states, and they are our kin. Did you notice the flag a Uighur Turkish woman was carrying in news reports from Urumchi (the region’s capital) this week? This flag is the same as ours, except for its color. The Uighur Turks in eastern Turkistan have a highly developed Turkish consciousness.

    Eastern Turkistan voluntarily attached itself to the Ottoman Empire during the Yakup Khan era (1820-1887). Yakup Bey sent his son, Yakup Khan Tore (Hodja Tore), to seek help from the Ottoman Sultan Abdulaziz, who then dispatched ships and weapons to Eastern Turkistan. Unfortunately, the region was invaded by the Chinese after Yakup Bey’s death in 1878, but in the 1930s the Uighur Turks rejected the occupation and, after a series of battles, declared the Eastern Turkistan Islam Republic in 1933, and the Eastern Turkistan Republic in 1944. But following communist China’s 1949 invasion, the territory was renamed the Xinjiang (Sincan) Uighur Autonomous Region, and Eastern Turkistan Turks have been trying to survive China’s occupation, captivity and atrocities ever since.

    The late Uighur Turkish leader Isa Yusuf Alptekin, who was my close friend, said that forces have tried to silently erase the Eastern Turkistan Turks from history. The massacre of Uighur Turks by the Chinese army and paramilitaries in Urumchi is happening in front of the eyes of the entire world. Although the official death toll is 156, we know that more than 1,000 Turks have been killed and 6,000 Uighur young people who were detained are being threatened with death. Even as the region’s Chinese governor said that the Turks protesting the cruel regime would be executed, he guaranteed protection to migrant Chinese Hans living there. What’s happening in Eastern Turkistan is no mere massacre, but a genocide. Muslim Turks are used as guinea pigs in nuclear tests; babies are killed due to obligatory abortions; everybody who seeks the right to a humane life and liberty is executed without due process; Chinese militant migrants are being systematically settled in the region year after year; and hundreds of thousands of young people are forced to work in torture work camps. In short, there are widespread and blatant violations of human rights.

    In our country, Turks are called to account for Armenians who were made to emigrate 100 years ago, but nobody talks about the millions of Turks who were massacred in Rumeli, the Caucasus, and the Middle East. Some 800,000 Iraqi Turks who were killed and forced to migrate following the US invasion of Iraq are now all but lost. Think about it: if even a small fraction of the events in Eastern Turkistan had happened somewhere else in the world, how loud would the criticism be? Seyit Tumturk, head of the East Turkistan Culture and Solidarity Association, told me that Uighur Turk leader Rabia Kader might be brought from Washington to Ankara to address the Uighur Turks at a press conference and calm down the situation. We welcome this suggestion. If we stay silent in the face of this massacre so as not to ruin our relations with China, we would be culpable in the eyes of the Turkish nation and history. The remarks made so far from Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu are praiseworthy. But they need to do more. Alptekin wrote shortly before his death that as long as the Eastern Turkistan issue isn’t solved humanely and the sun of liberty doesn’t rise in his country, a stain will forever mark his people. He added that he hoped Turkey would work to solve the Eastern Turkistan issue. We all should second this wish.”

    Turkish Press Review, 9.7.2009

    Aloso other related news / articles:
    China Bans Public Gatherings in Urumqi Amid Mourning
    https://www.bloomberg.com/politics?pid=20601080

    Death Toll Debated In China’s Rioting

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    https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/11/AR2009071100464.html?hpid=topnews

    A Strongman Is China’s Rock in Ethnic Strife

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    A Guide to China’s Ethnic Groups

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    Rumbles on the Rim of China’s Empire