Recently in Uyghur minority group Category

By Radio Free Asia

December 27, 2011

The security checks are believed to be part of a 100-day 'strike hard' anti-terror campaign in Xinjiang.

Authorities in China's troubled northwestern Xinjiang region have stepped up security checks on citizens, an overseas rights group said on Tuesday, as at least five ethnic minority Uyghurs are detained for possession of material deemed subversive by Beijing.

Dilxat Raxit, spokesman for the Munich-based World Uyghur Congress, said the tightened measures had begun last week in the regional capital Urumqi, but had also been reported in the south of the region, where police were carrying out house searches in the middle of the night.

"In the Aksu district there were some Uyghurs who were discovered in possession of photographs of [exiled Uyghur leader] Rebiya Kadeer and former U.S. president George W. Bush on their computers," Raxit said. "They were detained."

"In Yangtakexiehaier village, the police organized nearly 60 people to search more than 200 Uyghur households on Dec. 20," he added. "Some of the methods they used were violent."

He said police had confiscated computers from the home of at least one villager, Azmet Sadik, and had discovered "religious propaganda materials" at the home of another, Yifu Halili.

"They included books and disks explaining to people how to conduct [Islamic] prayers," Raxit said. "The two men are currently being held in the local police station."

The searches are believed to be part of a 100-day "strike hard"
anti-terror campaign in Xinjiang, begun by the Chinese authorities three weeks ago.

Four Uyghur men were detained recently in Urumqi for "taking part in illegal religious activities," while dozens were fined, Raxit said.

China's Muslim Uyghurs, a Turkic-speaking ethnic minority that has long chafed under Beijing's rule, have their practice of Islam tightly regulated by the ruling Communist Party, which bans children from mosques and controls everything about their worship, from the wording of sermons to "approved" interpretations of the Quran.

According to the authorities, study of the Quran in an unauthorized location constitutes an "illegal religious activity."

'Huge operation'

Raxit said raids had also taken place in Urumqi, which was rocked by ethnic violence in July 2009 that left nearly 200 people dead, according to official figures.

"There was a huge operation in Urumqi on Saturday," he said. "This was mostly focused on the close-packed Uyghur districts on the outskirts of the city."

Xinjiang's regional ruling Communist Party secretary Zhang Chunxian, who was brought in as a hardline "new broom" following the 2009 violence, said last week that his government would be stepping up measures to "preserve social stability" during 2012, when the party holds its 18th Congress, and Urumqi will host another Eurasian Expo.

The Xinjiang Daily quoted Zhang as calling on regional officials to make a watchful security stance the norm rather than the exception.

"Officials at all levels must harden their stance on opposing splittism and stepping up their crackdown on extremist religious forces and their activities," Zhang told a meeting on stability and security at the weekend.

An Urumqi resident surnamed Zhang said the citizens' security brigades that were recruited from among the Han population in the wake of the 2009 unrest were still very much in evidence.

"There are still a lot of security personnel and employees wearing red armbands in the underground markets and malls," he said.

"Some are uniformed [private] security guards, while others are employees wearing red armbands."

Since the raids in Aksu last week, three more Uyghur men have been detained in continuing raids on Uyghur homes, Raxit said.

"They are accused of possessing reactionary, splittist reading materials," he said.

'Religious content'

A police officer who answered the phone at the village police station confirmed the raids had taken place.

"Yes, that's right," the officer said, when asked if police there had recently confiscated "illegal" religious recordings and DVDs. "Mostly it was religious content, but there was also some pornography, along with other things that have been banned now," the officer said.

Asked if the confiscated material included media of Rebiya Kadeer, he said: "Yes, there were pictures of Rebiya Kadeer, as well as audiovisual material, which basically means stuff on DVD. She is subversive and a splittist."

But he declined to confirm how many Uyghurs were being held. "I'm not very familiar with the details, because things change daily from shift to shift," he said.

He said Uyghurs found with such material would receive different treatment "depending on the circumstances."

"We would have to see what they had been found with, the things that we found, and also the things that the state security police found," he said. "The more serious cases [will get criminal detention]...then we get in touch with the religious affairs bureau and we work on some of the process together."

Official media say Beijing wants to turn Urumqi into an important exchange platform for leaders and businesses in China and its western and southern neighbors, including Russia, Kazakhstan, and Pakistan.

But some experts believe Beijing's rapid development of Xinjiang, which they say has created more opportunities for Han Chinese than for the local Uyghur population, is leading to additional ethnic tension in the region.

Last year, Beijing ramped up security before and during for the five-day China-Eurasia Expo trade fair in Urumqi. The added security measures came in the wake of separate attacks in the Silk Road cities of Kashgar and Hotan that killed more than 30 people in July.

Reported by Qiao Long for RFA's Mandarin service and Hai Nan for the Cantonese service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.

>> Original Source

By Sharon LaFraniere, Michael Wines and Edward Wong | The New York Times

October 27, 2011

Political censorship in this authoritarian state has long been heavy-handed. But for years, the Communist Party has tolerated a creeping liberalization in popular culture, tacitly allowing everything from popular knockoffs of "American Idol"-style talent shows to freewheeling microblogs that let media groups prosper and let people blow off steam.

Now, the party appears to be saying "enough."

Whether spooked by popular uprisings worldwide, a coming leadership transition at home or their own citizens' increasingly provocative tastes, Communist leaders are proposing new limits on media and Internet freedoms that include some of the most restrictive measures in years.

The most striking instance occurred Tuesday, when the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television ordered 34 major satellite television stations to limit themselves to no more than two 90-minute entertainment shows each per week, and collectively 10 nationwide. They are also being ordered to broadcast two hours of state-approved news every evening and to disregard audience ratings in their programming decisions. The ministry said the measures, to go into effect on Jan. 1, were aimed at rooting out "excessive entertainment and vulgar tendencies."

The restrictions arrived as party leaders signaled new curbs on China's short-message, Twitter-like microblogs, an Internet sensation that has mushroomed in less than two years into a major -- and difficult to control -- source of whistle-blowing. Microbloggers, some of whom have attracted millions of followers, have been exposing scandals and official malfeasance, including an attempted cover-up of a recent high-speed rail accident, with astonishing speed and popularity.

On Wednesday, the Communist Party's Central Committee called in a report on its annual meeting for an "Internet management system" that would strictly regulate social network and instant-message systems, and punish those who spread "harmful information." The focus of the meeting, held this month, was on culture and ideology.

Analysts and employees inside the private companies that manage the microblogs say party officials are pressing for increasingly strict and swift censorship of unapproved opinions. Perhaps most telling, the authorities are discussing requiring microbloggers to register accounts with their real names and identification numbers instead of the anonymous handles now in wide use.

Although China's most famous bloggers tend to use their own names, requiring everyone to do so would make online whistle-blowing and criticism of officialdom -- two public services not easily duplicated elsewhere -- considerably riskier.

It would "definitely be harmful to free speech," said one microblog editor who refused to be named for fear of reprisal.

This newly buttoned-down approach coincides with a planned shift in the top leadership of the ruling party and government, an intricate process that will last for the next year. During such a period, tolerance for outspokenness outside official channels tends to shrink, and bureaucrats eager for promotion show their conservative stripes.

The crackdown also follows popular uprisings across the Middle East that appear to have given China's leaders pause regarding their own hold on absolute power. In the view of some, it also tracks the influence in China's ruling hierarchy of hard-liners like Zhou Yongkang, the public security chief who helped preside over the suppression of riots by ethnic Uighurs in western China's Xinjiang region.

On Tuesday, Xinhua, the state news agency, reported that Mr. Zhou was urging authorities "to solve problems regarding social integrity, morality and Internet management" and that he had called for "the early introduction of laws and regulations on the management of the Internet," among other things.

Nobody outside China's closeted leadership knows the true reason for the maneuvers, beyond a general and intangible sense of uneasiness over the degree to which freer speech is taking root here.

The microblogs, or weibos, are perhaps the prime example. In the last year, weibos have become the forum of choice for Chinese to pass on news and gossip about scandals involving government and the elite. The two largest, run by the privately held Sina Corporation and Tencent Holdings, each count more than 200 million registered users.

In the face of official censorship, their weibos are filled with salacious tales of official malfeasance, such as a July frenzy -- photographs included -- over a Yunnan Province city official's sex orgy. Industry insiders say the principal weibo (pronounced way-bwah) regulators, based in Beijing and the Shenzhen Communist Party Internet offices, have been assailed by government leaders elsewhere for allowing the scandals to spread online unchecked.

In fact, the government could easily shut down microblogs. Officials disconnected the entire Internet in Xinjiang for 10 months after the ethnic riots there in 2009. But their growing popularity makes that highly unlikely. The number of users has quadrupled in a single year.

Song Jianwu, dean of the school of journalism and communication at China University of Political Science and Law, said Chinese leaders accepted the need for such outlets for expression. But in the case of weibos, he added, "they are also concerned that this safety valve could turn into an explosive device."

He said the government might gradually require more and more users to register under their real names, while demanding that operators monitor posts more closely. "I think they will do it in a step-by-step fashion," he said. "We hope and we have suggested that they will do it in manner that is not antagonistic."

Some changes are already evident. Besides the in-house monitors who already scan posts for forbidden topics, operators in recent months have bolstered "rumor refutal" departments, staffed by editors, to investigate and knock down information deemed false.

Top officials, including Liu Qi, the party secretary of Beijing, have held publicized visits to microblog companies, sometimes accompanied by popular microbloggers, in which he urged people to uphold social order and the proper ideology -- and implying that their own status in official eyes would depend on their cooperation.

State restrictions on television are murkier. The rules ostensibly apply to CCTV-1, the general programming channel of Central China Television, but not to CCTV-3, which specializes in arts and entertainment, according to a report in the English-language edition of Global Times, an official newspaper.

Many people in the industry have interpreted the decree and earlier measures by central officials as attempts to bolster the ratings of CCTV against the onslaught of entertainment shows produced by satellite stations, which have been wildly successful. Last year, officials told producers of "If You Are the One," a popular dating show on Jiangsu Satellite Television, to tone down the program. Last month, the authorities suspended a talent show on Hunan Satellite Television, "Super Girl," for exceeding a broadcast time limit.

Many industry observers said the show may have been offensive for other reasons, including prompting home viewers to show support for their favorite contestants through cellphone texting, an action akin to voting. The shutdown of "Super Girl" was taken as a warning throughout the television industry and presaged the new rules.

Bill Bishop, a business consultant and media industry analyst in Beijing, wrote on his blog, DigiCha, that the new limits could drive television viewers to look for entertainment on the Internet. On the other hand, he added, officials might be preparing restrictions for online video content. "The trend in China appears to be towards more, not less, regulation," he wrote. "Investors may want to consider factoring in greater regulatory risk."

 Li Bibo and Edy Yin contributed research, and Jonathan Ansfield contributed reporting.

>> Original Source

By Sharon LaFraniere | The New York Times

August 16, 2011

China announced a two-month "strike hard" security campaign on Tuesday in the troubled western region of Xinjiang, with 24-hour police patrols of crowded areas, identity checks, street searches, increased criminal investigations and accelerated trials.

The latest mobilization of the region's security apparatus follows a five-week spate of violence that has resulted in at least three dozen deaths. Tensions between ethnic Uighur and Han populations keep parts of Xinjiang on perennial tenterhooks, and the authorities carry out at least one regionwide "high pressure" security campaign a year, said Nicholas Bequelin, a researcher for Human Rights Watch in Hong Kong.

A statement on Xinjiang's Web site said that the latest campaign was aimed at "destroying a number of violent terrorist groups and ensuring the region's stability."

Mr. Bequelin said such initiatives typically meant an intensified police presence and mandatory weekend political indoctrination classes for some Uighurs, including teachers. Xinjiang has experienced "nonstop campaigns against terrorism, separatism and religious extremism since the mid-'90s," he added, saying that "a vicious cycle of repression" was partly to blame for social unrest.

This month, the local authorities in Xinjiang's historic city of Kashgar charged that the leader of one assault had trained in Pakistan, a sign that China is increasingly concerned about whether Pakistan is a haven for Uighur extremists. Pakistan has pledged full cooperation with China in fighting terrorism.

>> Original Source

By Radio FREE Asia

July 06, 2011

Chinese authorities send a rights activist back to Xinjiang, to which she had been banished.

An outspoken lawyer was forcibly sent back to China's northwestern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region on Wednesday, after challenging a ban on her return to her home in Shanghai, according to a supporter and her attorney.

A man surnamed Xiao, who escorted Li Tiantian from the southern city of Shenzhen by train to Shanghai, confirmed that authorities had detained her upon her arrival in the city.

"After the train stopped at the Shanghai South station, national security police and plainclothes police officers closed in on Li Tiantian and took her away," Xiao said.

Later that day, Liu Xiaoyuan, the attorney who represents Li, posted on Twitter that she had been forced onto a train bound for Xinjiang from Shanghai.

Her family is now calling for her release.

Detention and relocation

Li had been practicing law in Shanghai until this past February, when police took her in for questioning over cyber posts celebrating the Egyptian people's overthrow of former President Hosni Mubarak.

One of dozens of dissidents and lawyers rights groups say the government has detained amid fears of a "Jasmine" revolution inspired by recent uprisings in the Middle East, Li was interrogated and then kept in detention.

Li was kept in a room without windows until her release on May 28.

When she was set free, authorities informed her that her place of residence had been registered in Xinjiang, where she was ordered to relocate.

She was told that she would not be permitted to return to Shanghai for three months and warned that she could no longer publish comments on the Internet.

But Li continued to post messages online via various microblogging sites while in Xinjiang and on July 2 announced that she would return to Shanghai, even at the risk of being jailed or killed.

Train to Shanghai

Earlier on Wednesday, Li traveled to the train station in Shenzhen with six of her supporters, including Xiao, who would escort her to Shanghai.

"The police expelled me three times from Shanghai in the past. I tried twice to return but failed," Li said in an interview with RFA after boarding the train.

"I need to go back to Shanghai to take care of the lawsuits I was working on," she said.

"The police are shameless, because I even promised them that if returned to Shanghai I would remain silent. But I also warned the authorities, I would risk anything to get back to my home."

While on the train, Xiao spoke with RFA about why he had decided to accompany Li to Shanghai.

"I cannot sit idly by while a lawyer is refused the right to return to her own home," he said.

"The police are abusing their power."

Rights lawyers targeted

Last July, as part of a larger focus on restructuring China's blogging services, authorities targeted the specific blogs of several prominent rights advocates.

Officials in Shanghai removed dozens of articles posted to a blog by Li Tiantian, who wrote about it on Twitter.

At the time, Li said she was likely to be fired if the boss of her law firm was called in to "drink tea" with police over her writings on her blog and on Twitter.

In Beijing, authorities also censored the blogs of two prominent rights lawyers: Liu Xiaoyuan's, with 250 articles removed overnight, and Teng Biao's.

Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube are all blocked in China, unless netizens use circumvention tools to gain access.

According to China's Online Public Opinion Monitoring & Measuring Department of the People's Daily online, 23 out of 77 key news stories during 2009 were broken by netizens.
 
Reported by Xin Yu for RFA's Mandarin Service. Translated by Ping Chen. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

>> Original Report

By Clifford Coonan | The Irish Times
March 24, 2011

China is intensifying a crackdown on the Uighur ethnic minority in the restive province of Xinjiang in response to uprisings against governments in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, exiled Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer has said.

"What happened in Tunisia and Egypt has strong effects on Uighur people and the Chinese people because it gives the oppressed peoples hope for a better world," Ms Kadeer told Australia's federal parliament.

Middle-East-inspired protests have been used as a pretext by China's security forces for a widespread crackdown on anyone the government considers a threat to its rule, including lawyers and political activists. There have been curbs imposed on foreign reporters and increased restrictions on internet access.

Ms Kadeer, a 65-year-old US-based businesswoman, was in Australia at the invitation of two government members despite objections from China.

Beijing blames Ms Kadeer for inciting ethnic clashes in Xinjiang's capital Urumqi in 2009, leaving about 200 people dead, mostly Han Chinese. She denies the charge.

The recent overthrow of Middle Eastern governments "sent shock waves through the Chinese leadership that people's patience could run out - people will one day rise up and challenge the authority of the regime", she said.

China had responded to the protests with a security crackdown that made the western cities of Kashgar and Urumqi resemble war zones as soldiers searched homes and rounded up members of the Turkic-speaking Muslim minority, she said.

Ms Kadeer made her remarks as seven people allegedly involved in plotting terrorist activities were sentenced to death for robbery and murder in Xinjiang.

Uighurs account for nine million of Xinjiang's 20 million residents and many are angry about the influx of Han Chinese and restrictions on their religion.

The landlocked province of Xinjiang has China's second-highest oil and natural gas reserves.

>> Original Report