Uyghur-separatisten opgepakt voor aanslag op Olympisch Spelen

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Gang 'plotted attack on Olympics'

China sees the Beijing Olympics as key to its international prestige
Suspected militants arrested in western China earlier this year were planning attacks on the Beijing Olympics, a Chinese official says.
Two people were reported to have been killed and 15 arrested in a raid on 27 January in Urumqi, Xinjiang province.

Officials now say their aim was to attack the August Olympics.

The alleged plot was disclosed as officials also revealed that a plane crew prevented an apparent attempt to crash a jet on an internal flight.

The incident occurred on Friday.

The flight also originated in Urumqi, and was bound for Beijing.

The China Southern Airlines plane landed safely despite an attempt "to create an air disaster", said Xinjiang Governor Nur Bekri.

He gave few details about the alleged attack.

"Who the people involved in the incident were, where they were from, what their aim was and what their background was, we are now investigating," he said.



But he said there was "an attempt to crash the plane", and that the crew responded and brought the plane to an emergency landing in the city of Lanzhou, in neighbouring Gansu province, with no damage or injuries.

Reuters quoted an anonymous source saying inflammable material was found in the plane's toilet, and that at least two passengers on the flight were taken into custody.

There was no confirmation of this.

'Sabotage'

Mr Bekri was speaking on the sidelines of the annual session of parliament in Beijing.

At the same event, the boss of the Communist Party in Xianjing, Wang Lequan, said January's raid in Urumqi had thwarted a plot to attack the Olympics.

"Their aim was very clear," he said. "Specifically to sabotage the staging of the Beijing Olympics."

"Those terrorists, saboteurs and secessionists are to be battered resolutely, no matter what ethnic group they are from," said Mr Wang.

China has been struggling for years to contain separatist sentiment among the Uighur minority in Xinjiang.

Some Uighurs have campaigned for the mainly Muslim province to become an independent republic.

The Xinjiang governor, himself an ethnic Uighur, said only a "very small number of people" in the region support the separatists.

"They don't represent the Uighur people," he added.

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Op zondag 9 maart 2008 22:56 schreef SpaRood het volgende:

[..]

Zowel Tibet en Taiwan horen bij China. In tegenstelling tot Servie en andere zwakke landen, kan China haar claim wel handhaven..Tibet is al stevig onder controle en redelijk geconsolideerd...geef het nog 50 jaar en alle separatisch sentiment zal zijn verdwenen...net zoals Amerika Hawai onder controle heeft gekregen. Taiwan is slechts een kwestie van tijd...z'on 10% van de bevolking is al voor onvoorwaardelijke hereniging (is veel!)...de meerderheid is voor de status quo, maar na een tijd zal er een constructie worden verzonnen voor vreedzame hereniging.

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Op zondag 9 maart 2008 23:39 schreef Ofyles2 het volgende:

[..]

Dat zijn moslims, neem ik aan?

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Op maandag 10 maart 2008 00:08 schreef gronk het volgende:
Prima natuurlijk. Maar heeft iemand aangegeven waar china begint en eindigt? Of is uiteindelijk de 'de hele wereld' chinees?

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A rare letter has been published from a Guantanamo Bay detainee, belonging to the Uighur ethnic group in China, outlining harsh conditions.
Abdulghappar Turkistani, 35, is one of a group of 17 Chinese Muslims who have been held at the US camp for six years.

Lawyers for the group say they have been approved for release by the US authorities but cannot return to China for fear of persecution.

Efforts to find a country to take the group have so far come to nothing.

The Uighurs, who are ethnic Turkic Muslims, come from Xinjiang province, where China meets Central Asia.

Uighur activists are seeking autonomy from China and there are sporadic outbreaks of violence in the province. Beijing accuses the activists of links to international terrorism networks.

'Metal box'

Mr Turkistani wrote the letter on behalf of his fellow Uighurs in December. US authorities recently cleared it for release.

In it he described the small, window-less cells where inmates were kept at the detention centre's Camp Six.

CHINA'S UIGHURS

Ethnically Turkic Muslims, mainly in Xinjiang
Made bid for independent state in 1940s
Sporadic violence in Xinjiang since 1991
Uighurs worried about Chinese immigration and erosion of traditional culture

"Being away from family, away from our homeland... being forbidden from the natural sunlight, natural air, being surrounded with a metal box all around, is not suitable for a human being," he said.

He had developed rheumatism and another Uighur was being force-fed twice a day after joining a hunger strike, he said.

Mr Turkistani said that the group - who were told that they would be freed by US military authorities in 2004 and 2005 - did not know why they were still being held.

"We fail to know why we are still in jail here," he said. "We are still in hope that the US government will free us soon and send us to a safe place."

His lawyer, Seema Saifee, said that the group were seeking resettlement in the US or Europe.

In the meantime, she said, they were being held in solitary confinement for 22 hours per day, with "hardly any means of communicating with each other".

A spokesman for the detention centre defended conditions at Camp Six, calling it a "a state-of-the-market detention facility".

Five Uighurs were freed from Guantanamo Bay in mid-2006 and sent to Albania.

About 275 inmates remain at the detention camp in Cuba.

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China has admitted that protests took place in a restive western region last month, days after unrest in Tibet.

Protesters "caused a disturbance" in the market town of Hotan in China's Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, according to the local government.

But there are conflicting reports about what caused the incident and the number of people involved.

Officials say protesters wanted independence for Xinjiang, but other reports blamed local disputes.

Xinjiang is a mostly Muslim region, many of whose inhabitants would like to see greater autonomy from Beijing.

Leaflets

According to Hotan local government, the incident took place on 23 March in the town's bazaar.

"A small number of the 'three forces'... attempted to incite the masses and provoke an incident," a press release said. No one was injured.

The "three forces" is a term used by the Chinese government for separatists, terrorists and extremists.

The press release went on to say that the public security bureau and the police stopped the protesters, who, it said, wanted to split the motherland.

Fu Chao, a spokesman for Hotan local government, told the BBC that several dozen protesters had distributed leaflets calling for demonstrations.

The protesters were calling on Uighurs, the main ethnic group in Xinjiang, to follow the lead of the Tibetans, he said.

Tibetans staged a series of protests in Tibet and other western provinces last month.

Mr Chao said most of the protesters had been arrested, and some of them had already been sent for "re-education".

Headscarf ban

But a report from Radio Free Asia (RFA), a US-funded broadcaster, said two local issues had led to the protests in Hotan, also spelt Khotan.

It said witnesses told the radio station that the death of a prominent local businessman and philanthropist while in custody had sparked anger.

Protesters were also demanding the authorities scrap a proposed headscarf ban in Hotan, an oasis town thousands of miles from Beijing, said RFA.

They also want China to stop using torture to suppress Uighur demands for greater autonomy, it added.

RFA also claims there were two protests in two locations in Hotan involving hundreds of people.

There has been sporadic violence in Xinjiang in recent years.

Chinese officials said last month that they had raided the hideout of what they called a terrorist group planning an attack on the Olympics.

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China 'foils Olympic terror plot'

China says it has cracked a terror plot to kidnap athletes, journalists and tourists at August's Beijing Olympics.

The security ministry said 35 arrests had been made in recent weeks and explosives seized in the north-western Xinjiang province.

It said 10 others were held when police smashed another plot based in Xinjiang back in January to disrupt the Games.

The province is home to many Muslim Uighurs, some of whom want independence in the region they call East Turkestan.

Uighur activists have accused the Chinese authorities of fabricating terror plots to crack down on the people of the region and prevent them airing legitimate grievances.

Thursday's development was announced by a Ministry of Public Security spokesman at a news conference.

Wu Heping was quoted by AFP news agency as saying: "The violent terrorist group plotted to kidnap foreign journalists, tourists and athletes during the Beijing Olympics."

'Suicide bombings'

Mr Wu said two terror rings had been smashed by the authorities and that militants had planned to launch attacks to disrupt the Olympics from next month.

In recent weeks, he said, police had seized nearly 10kg (22lb) of explosives and "jihadist" literature during raids in Xinjiang's capital, Urumqi.

He said the militants had sought volunteers to carry out suicide bombings in Urumqi and other Chinese cities.

Mr Wu also provided more details on another alleged plot, which the authorities said they had smashed last month.

He said those militants had planned to attack hotels and government offices in Beijing, Shanghai and other cities.

Poisonings and remote-control bombings were planned and 13 practice explosions had already been carried out, he said.

China said last month a plane crew had foiled a hijack attempt of a flight from Xinjiang to Beijing and two passengers had been detained.

But some observers question if China is inflating a terror threat to justify a clampdown on dissent ahead of the Olympics.

China brands the Xinjiang separatists as terrorists and has claimed more than 260 terror acts have been committed in the province over the past two decades.

Many in Xinjiang resent the recent and large-scale influx into the region of Han Chinese settlers, observers say, though there have been few reports of violence.

At the 1972 Munich Olympics, Palestinian terrorists kidnapped and killed nine Israeli athletes.

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Chinese police have shot dead five alleged Muslim militants in the north-western region of Xinjiang, reports state news agency Xinhua.

It said police had raided an apartment in the regional capital, Urumqi.

Officers opened fire when some of the group of 15 Uighur Muslims inside - armed with knives - tried to escape.

Uighur separatists in Xinjiang have waged a low-level campaign against Chinese rule for decades.

A police spokesman said that when officers surrounded the apartment, they found themselves facing 15 knife-wielding Uighurs shouting "sacrifice for Allah", Xinhua said

The five women and 10 men threatened to "perish together" with the police when they found themselves cornered.

Two of the group were reported to have been injured in the raid.

The remaining eight people in the apartment were arrested.

The agency cited an unnamed police spokesman as saying the suspects had confessed that they had been trained to prosecute a "holy war" against Chinese Han people, and wanted to establish their own Uighur state.

China has accused some groups of plotting terrorist attacks at the Olympics, but campaigners have said the government is exaggerating the threat.

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China Executes Two Uyghurs, Sentences 15

Washington, DC 20036 July 11 2008

WASHINGTON—Chinese authorities in the northwestern region of Xinjiang have executed two ethnic minority Uyghurs and sentenced 15 others for alleged terrorist links, local sources have told Radio Free Asia (RFA).


The Kashgar Intermediate Court sentenced two men—identified as Mukhtar Setiwaldi and Abduweli Imin—to death and immediately executed them after a public trial July 9 in Yengi Sheher county, Kashgar, Uyghur sources and a local official said.


Three others Uyghurs were handed two-year suspended death sentences and the rest were sentenced to jail terms ranging from 10 years to life, the sources said.


All 17 were charged as members of the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), which Beijing accuses of terrorist ties. ETIM denies the allegation.


Authorities ordered county residents to attend the trial but police banned cameras, lighters, and recording devices, the sources told RFA’s Uyghur service.


“It was an open trial,”one official at the Yengi Sheher county court said. “The Kashgar Intermediate Court was responsible for the case. Our duty was to provide a place for this open trial. I am not authorized to speak about it. The Kashgar Intermediate Court officials can give you detailed information."


Officials at Kashgar Intermediate Court, contacted by telephone, declined to comment.


'Political criminals'


“I participated in the open trial,” one Uyghur woman said. “Seventeen people were sentenced. All of them were political criminals. At the open trial, the authorities announced that these people were terrorists who took part in Aktu incident and some of them donated money.”


The “Aktu incident” refers to a Chinese raid on what authorities described as a terrorist camp in the Pamir mountains, in Aktu county, in January 2007. Authorities claimed to have killed 18 ETIM members and arrested 17.


“There were a lot of people. About 10,000 people attended the open trial,” she said. “The parents and relatives of the defendants weren’t allowed to attend. Members of the village committees, students, teachers, and government employees were allowed to attend.”


“One of the defendants shouted a slogan as he was being taken away—he raised his fist and shouted—but I couldn’t hear what he said,” another woman who watched the trial said.


Earlier incident


The trial came a day after police used smoke to force open a flat where 15 Uyghurs were staying in the Xinjiang capital, Urumqi, before shooting dead five Uyghurs inside who the official media said were planning a “holy war,” witnesses and official media said.


“The injured were sent to hospital and the other nine people were captured,” the official Xinhua news agency quoted a police officer as saying. “The suspects confessed they had all received training on the launching of a ‘holy war.’ Their aim was to kill Han people, the most populous ethnic group in China whom they took as heretics, and found their own state."


Uyghurs, like Tibetans, have a long history under Beijing’s heavy-handed rule-which has at times erupted in violence. But exiled Uyghurs deny the existence of an organized terrorist campaign and say previous incidents have been fabricated or exaggerated to secure international support for a crackdown.


In March, Chinese authorities said they had broken up and arrested members of a group that were threatening to sabotage the Beijing Olympics.


China has waged a campaign over the last decade against what it says are violent separatists and Islamic extremists who aim to establish an independent state in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, which shares a border with Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Mongolia.


After the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, Beijing took the position that Uyghur groups were connected with al-Qaeda and that ETIM was a “major component of the terrorist network headed by Osama bin Laden.” ETIM has denied that charge.


Original reporting by Shohret Hushor and Omer Kanat for RFA’s Uyghur service. Translated by Omer Kanat. Uyghur service director: Dolkun Kamberi. Written and produced in English by Sarah Jackson-Han.