Uyghur minority group: April 2007 Archives

BBC News
20 April 2007

Canada has condemned the authorities in China for sentencing a Canadian Uighur rights activist to life imprisonment.

Huseyincan Celil was jailed for crimes of "splitting the motherland" and participating in terrorist groups, according to China's state media.

Celil, who was born in China but gained Canadian citizenship as a political refugee, was arrested in Uzbekistan and deported to China last year.

Canada said it was concerned about claims that Celil had been tortured.

Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay said he was disappointed at the sentence and said the case had harmed relations between the two countries.

"The stakes are very high for Mr Celil, and certainly this case has had a spillover impact on Canada's relationship with China," Mr MacKay told reporters.

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By RadioFreeEurope * RadioLiberty
April 17, 2007

A court in China's western Xinjiang Province has sentenced the son of a prominent Uyghur activist to nine years in prison on charges of "instigating and engaging in secessionist activities."

China's Xinhua news agency gave no further details on the charges against Ablikim Abdiriyim.

Abdiriyim's mother, Uyghur rights activist Rebiya Kadeer, formerly served as a top government official, but was jailed for five years and later went into exile in the United States.

Two other sons of Kadeer have faced tax-evasion charges.

By Radio Free Asia
29 March 2007

Chinese authorities in the northwestern Xinjiang region are forcing tens of thousands of ethnic Uyghurs into producing almonds for the county government without pay, local residents and one official say.

The labor recruiting drive began in Yarkand county near Kashgar on March 6, and it requires every Uyghur household to send one person and a donkey cart to help in a massive expansion of the region’s traditional almond industry.

The wife of a village official in Yaqa Eriq hamlet who answered the phone confirmed the existence of the unpaid labor conscription drive, which is known in the local Uyghur language as “hasha.”

“It’s been seven or eight days since the hasha started,” she told RFA’s Uyghur service. “It’s in the river valley between Yaqa Eriq and the Zarapshan River.”

'A lot of people'
“There are many places that have to be cultivated. So there are a lot of people there,” she said, confirming reports that around 100,000 people had been forced to take part.

We are now digging pits, and burying dung in the pits...They said 10 days at first. But they say it may take 20 days now.

Uyghur farmer in Yarkand county
Asked if the laborers would get paid for their work, she said: “Probably not,” adding that those who didn’t obey the order would be subject to “criticism” from local officials.

A secretary in the Yarkand county government confirmed that there was a major cultivation project in the area. “Yes, they are cultivating land there,” he said. “An almond base.” He said the project was being overseen by the deputy secretary of the county Communist Party committee, Rishat Osman.

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