The Kashgar Road In London


Kashgar is one famaus City in Uyghuristan. The story behind London's Kashgar Road is very intersting. If one of London's Uyghurs happens to be looking through London's A to Z street map and stumbles upon the entry: Kashgar Road, it is with a shock of recognition. If one of the foreigners in London will seek adoption of a to z London Street Road maps and research and development, access: Kashgar road, it is a shock of recognition. For London's Uyghurs, used to the daily routine of explaining to the British who the Uyghurs are and where they come from, it is extraordinary to find that one of their major cities has lent its name to a London street. London foreigners, daily explained to the British people to see, and they, it is extraordinary that one of their major cities, the name lent to the streets of London.

How did this come about? How so? The city of Kashgar is situated in distant Asia, a little known city today, it was a capital of the distinctions Qarakhan Kingdom in the 11th century and a political and cultural center for the Central Asian Uyghurs. Kashgar is located in a distant city in Asia, today's 1 unknown to the city, which is capital qarakhan Uighur Kingdom in the 11th century is a political and cultural center for the Central Asian Uyghur. Kashgar means in the Turkic language alphabets: the city at the river bank (Zerepshan river) and its geographical location is between the eastern foothills of the Pamir-Karakorum mountain range and the west edge of the Taklamakan desert, and its present position on the political map imagine is within the Uyghuristan/ Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of Northwest China. Turkic-speaking Uighur Kashgar means: The City worker with stone in Zerepshan River, and its location between the eastern foothills of the Pamir - Karakorum Mountains and the western edge of the Taklimakan Desert, and its current position on the political map of the new Uyghuristan/Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in Northwest China. The London district of Plumstead lies to the east of the city, on the south bank of the river Thames, bordering on the industrial center of Woolwich.

London hates lies in the east of the city, south of the Thames, adjacent to industrial centers picked up. Until the 19th century it was a small village whose inhabitants thousand or so made a living from fishing and agriculture; Plumstead the name means' the place where the plums grow '. Until the 19th century, it is a small village of more than 1,000 residents living from fishing and agriculture; recognize the name means' local plum growth '. In the mid 19th century this changed suddenly and this small Kentish village mushroomed into a heavily populated London suburb. In the mid-19th century this sudden change of this small village kentish mushroomed into densely populated outskirts of London. In 1841 the population of Plumstead was 2,816 but by 1891 it had grown to 52,754. 1841 population of 2,816 left shoulder, but in 1891 it had increased to 52,754.

Plumstead's sudden growth in the 19th century was inextricably linked to Woolwich, its imperial and military connections, and in particular its importance as a center for the manufacture of arms and armaments. Hate the sudden growth in the 19th century prosperity are inseparable from their Dili State and military ties, particularly its importance as a center manufacture of weapons and armaments. The site where this took place was given the name Royal Arsenal in 1805.

At this matter occurs as a result of 1,805 names of the Royal Arsenal. Woolwich was also a major garrison town, housing thousands of soldiers, and home to a major of the Royal Navy dockyard. 1-8 is a major garrison city housing thousands of soldiers, in a large family of the Royal Navy Dockyard. The Royal Arsenal expanded in the mid-19th century in response to the ever-growing military aspect of sustaining and enlarging the British Empire. Royal Arsenal expanded in the mid-19th century growing military maintain and expand the British Empire. In the second half of the 19th century Plumstead was fast becoming one huge building site. In the second half of the 19th century left shoulder was fast becoming a huge construction site.

Industry in Woolwich continued to expand, spurred on in particular by the Crimean War (1854-6). 1-8 industry will continue to expand, particularly by stimulating the Crimean War (bruises). The Armstrong Gun Factory, new cartridge and gun carriage factories were built on reclaimed marshland Plumstead. Armstrong Gun Factory, the new cartridges, and carrying guns factories built in the reclamation recognize original appearance. The British Empire and its exploits were reflected in all the stages of development in Plumstead, as befitted an area which was contributing so directly to British military expansion. The British Empire and its use reflected in the various stages of development to hate because of a modest contribution to the field, so directly to the British military expansion.

The first major building development began in the Post around the time of the Crimean War, and the commanders of that war and battles provided names for the new streets. The first large-scale development and construction began in about 1850 when the Crimean War, commanders and combatants of war a new street name. Kashgar Road was part of a network of streets built in the 1870s and 1880s. Kashgar part of a network of roads, streets, was built in 1870 and 1880. Many of the roads were given similarly exotic names from far-flung parts of the empire, or areas in which Britain was then becoming interested in: Kashgar Road adjoins Benares Road, named for the ancient Indian city, while the neighboring Ceres Road seems to have been named for a Royal Navy ship, the HMS Ceres. many roads were given exotic names from the same remote part of the empire, or in what context, the United Kingdom was interested in becoming: Kashgar road adjacent Bedouin Road, named for ancient Indian city, and adjacent to the Valley Road has been appointed as the Royal Navy warships, the Valley hms God. But apart from the names, there was little glamorous or exotic about the streets themselves.

But except for their names, what are charming exotic or their streets. Their terraced houses were small and were aimed at the many semi-skilled and manual workers who produced the armaments at the Royal Arsenal. They are small bungalows, in many semi-skilled and manual production equipment at the Royal Arsenal. So why had the Turkestani town of Kashgar come to capture the British imagination in the mid-19th century? Why have the Turkish town of Kashgar to capture the British imagination in the mid-19th century? Previously almost unknown in the West, Kashgar began to feature in the British press in the 1860s and 1870s when it was drawn into the 'Great Game', the struggle for influence in Central Asia between the two expanding colonial powers, Britain and Russia.

Before almost not in the West, the start of Kashi, in the British press in 1860 and 1870, it was involved in the 'Great Game' struggle against the influence of colonial expansion of the two countries in Central Asia, the United Kingdom and Russia. Kashgar's appearance in the Great Game was impelled by local events, beginning with a major rebellion against the ruling Qing empire in the 1860s and the emergence of the General Yaqub un Khoqandi as ruler of Kashgaria. Kashi region in the face of the game began to inspire local activities with a large-Empire against the ruling party in 1860 and emerging khoqandi yaqub move as a general rule, Kashgar. In 1865 Yaqub un crossed into Kashgar from Khoqand, and by 1867 he had established his rule over Kashgar and the surrounding regions. Yaqupbeg move into 1865 from khoqand Kashgar region, and in 1867 he established his own rule Kashgar and surrounding areas. Both Britain and Russia quickly moved to exploit this potential to extend their influence in the region. Britain and Russia quick to exploit this potential and to expand its influence in the area.

The British first sent an Indian army officer, Mirza Shuja, on an undercover mission to Kashgar in 1866. Britain first sent an Indian Army officer, Mirza six days, the undercover Mission in Kashgar 1866. His task was to report back to Britain on political developments, and to produce reliable maps of that as yet unknown region. His task is to report to the British political development, and produce reliable maps, unknown region. In 1868 the first British man, the trader Robert Shaw, arrived in Kashgar from India with a caravan carrying tea and other goods. In 1868 the first British man, businessman Robert Shaw arrived in Kashgar, from India and the vehicle carrying tea and other commodities. Another British man George Hayward came soon after on a government mission to explore the mountain passes between Ladakh and Kashgaria. Another British man Jiaochihaiwode came shortly after the government's mission to explore the mountain roads between Ladakh and Kashgar. Both men were held in Kashgar for several months before Yaqub un sent them back with a message of friendship to the British government.

Two held in Kashgar Yaqupbeg move a few months ago and sent them back to the same information, and friendly to the British government. The men received a heroes' welcome when they arrived back in India, and Kashgar became the latest name to feature in the British press accounts of the exploits of its brave 'sons of empire' in dangerous and exotic regions. Men received a heroes', welcome they returned to India, Kashgar become the latest name of the loopholes in the British press accounts, the brave son of dangerous and exotic Empire region. The British were keenly aware that Yaqub Anemone was also courting the Russians, who moved in 1871 to take control over the Ili valley to the north.

Britain was acutely aware of yaqub would also please the Russians, in 1871 to take control of the Ili Valley to the north. Yaqub Anemone also continued his conquests, and by 1872 he had expanded his territory north and east to today's Qumul and Urumchi. Yaqupbeg also would like to continue his conquest, and in 1872 he expanded its areas in the east and north of Urumchi and qumul today. In 1873, Lord Mayo, the Viceroy of India, sent a large diplomatic mission to Kashgar led by Douglas Forsythe with 350 men in his train, including cavalry, interpreters, clerks, guides and servants. In 1873, Lord Brown, Victoria, India sent a huge, Cross mission, headed by Douglas forsythe Kashigar to 350 men in his train, including cavalry, interpreters, clerks, guides and servant. Diplomatic ties were established, Britain formally recognized Yaqub Pei's rule, and attempted to broker an agreement between the Qing and Yaqub Pei's representatives to establish an independent buffer state between British India, Russia and China. The establishment of diplomatic relations, the British official recognition yaqub move the rule and attempted to broker an agreement on behalf of the Green yaqub move, the establishment of an independent buffer between British India, Russia and China. However, Britain's interest in un Yaqub did not last.

The EU, however, not the interests yaqub move on. In 1876 the Qing, having successfully dealt with the Taiping uprising in inner China, sent General Zuo Zongtang to restore control over Kashgaria. In 1876 the Qing Dynasty, in the successful handling Taiping Uprising, China dispatched Zuo Zongtang resume control of Kashgar.

Britain decided to abandon its support of Yaqub Anemone, and offered financial support to Zuo Zongtang, believing that Chinese rule in the region offered a stronger buffer against Russia. Yaqub British decision to abandon support, and provide financial support, Zuo Zongtang, that the Chinese rule in the region provide a strong buffer against Russia. Zuo's campaign was slow and expensive but successful. Leftist Movement is slow and costly, but successful.

Urumchi was taken in 1876 and subjected to a bloody massacre, and the state of Kashgaria fell soon after following the death of Yaqub Pei in 1877. Urumchi was taken to the 1876 and suffered a bloody massacre, and the slide shortly after the death of Kashi yaqub honor 1877. In 1881 Russia returned the Ili valley to the Qing, and in 1884 the whole region was formally incorporated into the Qing Empire as Ostturkistan, but the British and Russians continued to vie for influence in Kashgar for years.

In 1881 the return of Ili Valley-Russia , and in 1884 the entire region was officially included in the Ostturkestan-empire, but Britain and Russia continue to affect Kashgar for years. By the turn of the century both powers had established consuls in Kashgar, and the British public continued to be entertained by accounts written by explorers, archaeologists and adventurers in the region over the next few decades, while Kashgar Road, Plumstead, remains as a monument to the complex politics of that time. by the turn of the century have established consular authority in Kashgar, the British public to continue to be admissible, by written accounts by explorers, archaeologists and explorers in the region in the next few decades, and Kashgar Road, left shoulder, remains as a monument to the complex miscellaneous political time.

References Reference Http://www.idealhomes.org.uk/greenwich/plumstead/plumstead-1800-1900-01.htm # BeforeDevelopment (accessed 25/6/07) # http://www.ideal-homes.org. uk/greenwich/plumstead/plumstead-1800-1900-01.htm beforedevelopment (access 25/6/07) Boulger, 'Charles. Boulger Charles de Menezes. 1878. 1878. The life of Yakoob Pei; Athalik Ghazi, and Badaulet; Ameer of Kashgar. I beg life; Athalik Ghazi and badölet; Ameer Kashgar. London: W. H. Allen & Co. London: Allen & text h. Hopkirk, Peter. Hopkirk, Peter. 1990. 1990. The Great Game: on the Secret Service in High Asia.Oxford University. Great Game: The agents in high asia.oxford University.

© Copyright 2007 London tells Ensemble. Copyright 2007 London Uighur ensemble. All Rights Reserved. All rights reserved.

Http://www.uyghurensemble.co.uk http://www.uyghurensemble.co.uk Original English text: Diplomatic ties were established, Britain formally recognized Yaqub beg's rule, and attempted to broker an agreement between the Qing and Yaqub Pei's representatives to establish an independent buffer state between British India, Russia and China.

U.S. House urges China to release Canadian, And Uighur activist's children


110th CONGRESS1st Session H. RES. 497Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the Government of the People’s Republic of China should immediately release from custody the children of Rebiya Kadeer and Canadian citizen Huseyin Celil and should refrain from further engaging in acts of cultural, linguistic, and religious suppression directed against the Uyghur people, and for other purposes.


In The House Of Representatives 110th CONGRESS1st Session H. RES. 497Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the Government of the People’s Republic of China should immediately release from custody the children of Rebiya Kadeer and Canadian citizen Huseyin Celil and should refrain from further engaging in acts of cultural, linguistic, and religious suppression directed against the Uyghur people, and for other purposes.June 19, 2007Ms. Ros-Lehtinen (for herself, Mr. Lantos, Mr. Burton of Indiana, Mr. Rohrabacher, Mr. Chabot, Mr. Pence, Mr. Tancredo, Mr. Pitts, and Mr. Honda) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign AffairsRESOLUTIONExpressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the Government of the People’s Republic of China should immediately release from custody the children of Rebiya Kadeer and Canadian citizen Huseyin Celil and should refrain from further engaging in acts of cultural, linguistic, and religious suppression directed against the Uyghur people, and for other purposes.

Whereas the protection of the human rights of minority groups is consistent with the actions of a responsible stakeholder in the international community and with the role of a host of a major international event such as the Olympic Games;Whereas recent actions taken against the Uyghur minority by authorities in the People’s Republic of China and, specifically, by local officials in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, have included major violations of human rights and acts of cultural suppression;Whereas the authorities of the People’s Republic of China have manipulated the strategic objectives of the international war on terror to increase their cultural and religious oppression of the Muslim population residing in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region;

Whereas an official campaign to encourage Han Chinese migration into the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region has resulted in the Uyghur population becoming a minority in their traditional homeland and has placed immense pressure on those who are seeking to preserve the linguistic, cultural, and religious traditions of the Uyghur people;Whereas the House of Representatives has a particular interest in the fate of Uyghur human rights leader Rebiya Kadeer, a Nobel Peace Prize nominee, and her family as Ms. Kadeer was first arrested in August 1999 while she was en route to meet with a delegation from the Congressional Research Service and was held in prison on spurious charges until her release and exile to the United States in the spring of 2005.

Whereas upon her release, Ms. Kadeer was warned by her Chinese jailors not to advocate for human rights in Xinjiang and throughout China while in the United States or elsewhere, and was reminded that she had several family members residing in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region;Whereas while residing in the United States, Ms. Kadeer founded the International Uyghur Human Rights and Democracy Foundation and was elected President of the Uyghur American Association and President of the World Uyghur Congress in Munich, Germany;Whereas two of Ms. Kadeer’s sons were detained and beaten and one of her daughters was placed under house arrest in June 2006;Whereas President George W. Bush recognized the importance of Ms. Kadeer’s human rights work in a June 5, 2007, speech in Prague, Czech Republic, when he stated: “Another dissident I will meet here is Rebiyah Kadeer of China, whose sons have been jailed in what we believe is an act of retaliation for her human rights activities. The talent of men and women like Rebiyah is the greatest resource of their nations, far more valuable than the weapons of their army or their oil under the ground.”;Whereas Kahar Abdureyim, Ms. Kadeer’s eldest son, was fined $12,500 for tax evasion and another son, Alim Abdureyim, was sentenced to seven years in prison and fined $62,500 for tax evasion in a blatant attempt by local authorities to take control of the Kadeer family’s remaining business assets in the People’s Republic of China;Whereas another of Ms. Kadeer’s sons, Ablikim Abdureyim, was beaten by local police to the point of requiring medical attention in June 2006 and has been subjected to continued physical abuse and torture while being held incommunicado in custody since that time;Whereas Ablikim Abdureyim was also convicted by a kangaroo court on April 17, 2007, for “instigating and engaging in secessionist” activities and was sentenced to nine years of imprisonment, this trial being held in secrecy and Mr. Abdureyim reportedly being denied the right to legal representation.

Whereas two days later, on April 19, 2007, another court in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, sentenced Canadian citizen Huseyin Celil to life in prison for “splittism” and also for “being party to a terrorist organization” after having successfully sought his extradition from Uzbekistan where he was visiting relatives;Whereas Chinese authorities have continued to refuse to recognize Mr. Celil’s Canadian citizenship, although he was naturalized in 2005, denied Canadian diplomats access to the courtroom when Mr. Celil was sentenced, and have refused to grant consular access to Mr. Celil in prison;Whereas a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson publicly warned Canada “not to interfere in China’s domestic affairs” after Mr. Celil’s sentencing; andWhereas Mr. Celil’s case was a major topic of conversation in a recent Beijing meeting between the Canadian and Chinese Foreign Ministers: Now, therefore, be itResolved, That it is the sense of the House of Representatives that the Government of the People’s Republic of China—(1) should recognize, and seek to ensure, the linguistic, cultural, and religious rights of the Uyghur people of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region;(2) should immediately release the children of Rebiya Kadeer from both incarceration and house arrest and cease harassment and intimidation of the Kadeer family members; and(3) should immediately release Canadian citizen Huseyin Celil and allow him to rejoin his family in Canada.


http://thomas.loc.gov/home/gpoxmlc110/hr497_ih.xmlhttp://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill...bill=hr110-497http://www.cbc.ca/cp/world/070917/w0917109A.html

International Religious Freedom Report 2007
09/15/2007 Reports

International Religious Freedom Report 2007
Released on September 14, 2007
Released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor

Reports on Hong Kong, Macau, and Tibetan areas of China are appended at the end of this report.

The Constitution states that citizens enjoy freedom of religious belief and the freedom not to believe in any religion. The Constitution limits protection of the exercise of religious belief to activities which it defines as "normal." The Constitution states that religious bodies and affairs are not to be "subject to any foreign domination." The law also prohibits proselytism.

The Government restricted religious practice largely to government-sanctioned organizations and registered places of worship and controlled growth and scope of activities of both registered and unregistered religious groups, including "house churches." The Government tried to control and regulate the growth of religious groups that could constitute sources of authority outside of the control of the Government and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Nonetheless, membership in many religious groups was growing rapidly.

During the period covered by this report, the Government's respect for freedom of religion remained poor, especially for religious groups and spiritual movements that are not registered with the Government. The Government expelled several foreign citizens on charges of conducting "illegal religious activities" by proselytizing in the spring of 2007. According to nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), religious organizations, and house church groups, over one hundred were expelled. The Government also questioned house church leaders about connections with foreigners and plans to disrupt the Olympics. Some of these groups alleged that these incidents were part of a coordinated government campaign to repress religious expression. The Government also continued to emphasize the role of religion in building a "Harmonious Society," which was a positive development with regard to the Government’s respect for religious freedom.

Members of many unregistered religious groups of various faiths reported that the Government subjected them to restrictions, including intimidation, harassment, and detention. Some unregistered religious groups were pressured to register as "meeting points" of government-sanctioned "patriotic" religious associations (PRAs) linked to the five main religions--Buddhism, Islam, Taoism, Catholicism, and Protestantism. The treatment of unregistered groups varied significantly from region to region.

Religious worship in officially sanctioned and unregistered places of worship continued to grow throughout the country. The extent of religious freedom varied widely within the country. For example, officials in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (Xinjiang) tightly controlled religious activity, while elsewhere in the country Muslims enjoyed greater religious freedom. Despite Government statements that minors are free to receive religious training that does not interfere with their secular education, authorities in some areas of Xinjiang failed to enforce these protections and reportedly prevented minors from receiving religious education outside the home. Followers of Tibetan Buddhism, including in the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region and Tibetan areas of the country (see separate appendix), also faced more restrictions on their religious practice and ability to organize than Buddhists in other parts of the country.

There were many reports of repression of unregistered Protestant church networks and house churches during the reporting period. The national religious affairs ministry, known as State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA), stated that friends and family holding prayer meetings at home need not register with the Government, but the regulations on religious affairs (RRA) state that formal worship should take place only in government-approved venues. There were many reports that police and officials of local Religious Affairs Bureaus (RABs) interfered with house church meetings, sometimes accusing the house church of disturbing neighbors or disrupting social order. Police sometimes detained worshippers attending such services for hours or days and prevented further house worship in the venues. Police interrogated both laypeople and their leaders about their activities at the meeting sites, in hotel rooms, and in detention centers. Leaders sometimes faced harsher treatment, including detention, formal arrest and sentencing to reeducation or imprisonment. Treatment of unregistered groups varied regionally. For example, local officials in Henan Province mistreated unregistered Protestants, and local officials in Hebei Province tightly controlled Roman Catholics loyal to the Vatican.

Some "underground" Catholic bishops also faced repression, in large part due to their avowed loyalty to the Vatican, which the Government accused of interfering in the country's internal affairs.

The Government continued its repression of groups that it designated as "cults," which included several Christian groups and the Falun Gong. The Government has never publicly defined the criteria which it uses for designating a religious group a "cult." Falun Gong practitioners continued to face arrest, detention, and imprisonment, and there were credible reports of deaths due to torture and abuse. Practitioners who refuse to recant their beliefs are sometimes subjected to harsh treatment in prisons, reeducation through labor camps, and extra-judicial "legal education" centers. Some practitioners who recanted their beliefs returned from detention. Reports of abuse were difficult to confirm within the country and the group engaged in almost no public activity. There were continuing reports that the Government's "610 office," a state security agency implicated in many alleged abuses of Falun Gong practitioners, continued to use extra-legal methods of repression.

There were some reports of societal abuses or discrimination based on religious belief or practice. Religious and ethnic minority groups, such as Tibetans and Uighurs, experienced societal discrimination not only because of their religious beliefs but also because of their status as ethnic minorities with languages and cultures different from the typically wealthier Han Chinese.

The U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, and the consulates general in Chengdu, Guangzhou, Shanghai, and Shenyang made concerted efforts to encourage greater religious freedom in the country. U.S. officials condemned abuses while supporting positive trends within the country. In Washington and in Beijing, U.S. officials positively noted the Government’s engagement of religious citizens in building a "Harmonious Society," the state’s campaign to alleviate social tensions, and encouraged the Government to engage unregistered religious groups as well as registered religious groups in providing voluntary aid to meet the country’s social and economic needs. U.S. officials continued to urge the Government to show greater respect for citizens' constitutional and internationally recognized rights to exercise their religious beliefs. U.S. officials protested the imprisonment of and asked for further information about numerous individual religious prisoners.

Since 1999, the Secretary of State has designated China a "Country of Particular Concern" (CPC) under the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) for particularly severe violations of religious freedom.

Section I. Religious Demography

The country has an area of 3.5 million square miles and a population of approximately 1.3 billion. According to an April 2005 government White Paper, there are "more than 100 million religious adherents," representing a great variety of beliefs and practices. There are reportedly more than 100,000 sites for religious activities, 300,000 clergy, and more than 3,000 religious organizations. A February 2007 survey conducted by researchers in Shanghai and reported in Chinese state-run media concluded that 31.4 percent of Chinese citizens ages 16 and over, or 300 million persons, are religious. This is approximately three times the official figure reported by the Government in April 2005. According to the February 2007 poll, approximately 40 million citizens identify themselves as Christians and 200 million identify themselves as Buddhist, Taoist, or worshippers of "legendary figures."

The Government officially recognizes five main religions: Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Catholicism, and Protestantism. There are five state-sanctioned PRAs that manage the activities of adherents of the five officially-recognized faiths. The Russian Orthodox Church operates in some regions, and expatriates practiced other religions.

According to the Government’s 1997 report on Religious Freedom and 2005 White Paper on religion, there are more than 100 million Buddhists. It is difficult to estimate accurately the number of Buddhists because they do not have congregational memberships and often do not participate in public ceremonies. The Government estimated that there are 16,000 Buddhist temples and monasteries, 200,000 Buddhist monks and nuns, more than 1,700 "reincarnate lamas," and 32 Buddhist schools. Most believers, including most ethnic Han Buddhists, practice Mahayana Buddhism. Most Tibetans and ethnic Mongolians practice Tibetan Buddhism, a Mahayana adaptation. Some ethnic minorities in southwest Yunnan Province practice Theravada Buddhism, the dominant tradition in parts of neighboring Southeast Asia. According to the government-sanctioned Taoist Association, there are more than 25,000 Taoist priests and nuns, more than 1,500 Taoist temples, and two Taoist schools. Traditional folk religions (worship of local gods, heroes, and ancestors) are practiced by hundreds of millions of citizens and are often affiliated with Taoism, Buddhism, or ethnic minority cultural practices.

According to government figures, there were as many as 20 million Muslims, more than 40,000 Islamic places of worship (more than half of which are in Xinjiang), more than 45,000 imams nationwide, and 10 Islamic schools. The country has 10 predominantly Muslim ethnic groups, the largest of which is the Hui, estimated to number nearly 10 million. Hui are centered in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, but there are significant concentrations of Hui throughout the country, including in Gansu, Henan, Qinghai, Yunnan, Hebei, and Xinjiang Provinces. Hui slightly outnumber Uighur Muslims, who live primarily in Xinjiang. According to an official 2005 report, the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region had 23,900 mosques and 27,000 clerics at the end of 2004, but observers noted that fewer than half of the mosques were authorized to hold Friday prayer and holiday services. The country also has more than 1 million Kazakh Muslims and thousands of Dongxiang, Kyrgyz, Salar, Tajik, Uzbek, Baoan, and Tatar Muslims.

There are 5.3 million persons registered with the official Catholic Patriotic Association (CPA), and it is estimated that there are an equal or greater number who worship in unregistered Catholic churches affiliated with the Vatican. According to official sources, the government-sanctioned Catholic Patriotic Association has more than 70 bishops, almost 3,000 priests and nuns, 6,000 churches and meeting places, and 12 seminaries. There are thought to be approximately 40 bishops operating "underground," some of whom are in prison or under house arrest. A Vatican representative estimated that there are 8 to 18 million Catholics in the country

Officials from the Three-Self Patriotic Movement/China Christian Council (TSPM/CCC), the state-approved Protestant religious organization, estimated that at least 20 million citizens worship in official churches. Government officials stated that there are more than 50,000 registered TSPM churches and 18 TSPM theological schools. According to NGO reports, SARA Director Ye Xiaowen reported to audiences at Beijing University and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences that the number of Christians had reached 130 million by the end of 2006, including about 20 million Catholics.

The Falun Gong is a self-described spiritual movement that blends aspects of Taoism, Buddhism, and the meditation techniques and physical exercises of qigong (a traditional Chinese exercise discipline) with the teachings of Falun Gong leader Li Hongzhi. There are estimated to have been at least 2.1 million adherents of Falun Gong before the Government’s harsh crackdown on the group beginning in 1999. There are reliable estimates that hundreds of thousands of citizens still practice Falun Gong privately.

Section II. Status of Religious Freedom

Legal/Policy Framework

The Constitution provides for freedom of religious belief and the freedom not to believe; however, the Constitution limits protection of religious belief to activities which it defines as "normal." The Constitution also states that rreligious bodies and affairs are not to be "subject to any foreign domination." The Government restricts lawful religious practice largely to government-sanctioned organizations and registered places of worship and attempts to control the growth and scope of activities of both registered and unregistered religious groups. The Government tries to prevent the rise of religious groups that could constitute sources of authority outside of the control of the Government and the Chinese Communist Party. Nonetheless, membership in many faiths is growing rapidly.

The Government registers religious organizations, and determines the legality of religious activities. Registered religious groups enjoy legal protections of their religious practices that unregistered religious groups do not receive. The five state-sanctioned PRAs are registered with the Government as religious organizations. SARA monitors and judges whether religious activities are "normal" and therefore lawful. SARA and the CCP United Front Work Department (UFWD) provide policy "guidance and supervision" on the implementation of regulations regarding religious activity, including the role of foreigners in religious activity. Employees of SARA and the UFWD are rarely religious adherents and often are Communist Party members. Communist Party members are directed by Party doctrine to be atheists, and their family members are discouraged from public participation in religious ceremonies.

Public security bureau officials monitor religious behavior that violates law or regulation. These officials monitor unregistered facilities, check to see that religious activities do not disrupt public order, and combat groups designated as cults.

The 2005 RRA protect the rights of registered religious groups to possess property, publish literature, train and approve clergy, and collect donations. Comprehensive implementing regulations had not been issued by the end of the period covered by this report, and there was little evidence that the new regulations have expanded religious freedom, because unregistered religious organizations have not been able to register under the RRA. Therefore, the activities of unregistered religious groups remained outside the scope of the RRA's legal protection.

The Three-Self Patriotic Movement/Chinese Christian Council (TSPM/CCC) states that registration does not require a congregation to join either the TSPM or the CCC. However, nearly all local RAB officials require registered Protestant congregations and clergy to affiliate with the TSPM/CCC. Credentialing procedures effectively required clergy to affiliate with the TSPM/CCC, a practice that appeared unchanged since adoption of the new regulations. Before the passage of the RRA, a few Protestant groups reportedly registered independently of the TSPM/CCC. These included the Local Assemblies Protestant churches in Zhejiang Province (where no significant TSPM/CCC community exists) and the (Korean) Chaoyang Church in Jilin Province. It was not clear whether these religious groups registered as meeting points of pre-existing religious organizations or as religious organizations themselves. The (Russian) Orthodox Church has been able to operate without affiliating with a PRA in a few parts of the country.

Many unregistered evangelical Protestant groups refused to register or affiliate with the TSPM/CCC because they have theological differences with the TSPM/CCC. Others did not seek registration independently or with one of the PRAs due to fear of adverse consequences if they reveal, as required, the names and addresses of church leaders or members. Others state that TSPM theology places submission to the state’s authority above submission to Christ’s authority and refuse to join on these grounds. Some groups disagreed with the TSPM/CCC teachings that differences in the tenets of different Protestant creeds can be reconciled or accommodated under one "post denominational" religious umbrella organization. Many evangelical house church groups also disagreed with the TSPM's admonitions against proselytism, which they consider a central teaching of Christianity.

Unregistered groups also frequently did not affiliate with one of the PRAs for fear that doing so would allow government authorities to control sermon content.

During the reporting period, the Government rejected attempts by several unregistered religious groups to register. Some groups reported that authorities denied their applications without cause or detained group members who met with officials when they attempted to register. The Government contended that these refusals were the result of these groups' lack of adequate facilities or failure to meet other legal requirements. A few unregistered religious groups were able to register as "meeting points" of one of the PRAs.

In order to register a "site for religious activity" or a "meeting point" under the RRA a religious group must also register as a social organization under the "Regulations on the Management of Registration of Social Organizations" (RSO), which are administered by the Ministry of Civil Affairs (MOCA). Unregistered religious groups stated that it was difficult to obtain the "sponsorship" of a "qualified supervisory unit" without the support of one of the PRAs. The five PRAs are the only religious organizations known to be registered under the RSO. Religious groups that are not registered under the RSO do not enjoy legal protection and cannot register their own meeting points under the RRA.

The RRA has five requirements for the registration of meeting points or sites for religious activities: First, establishment of the site must be consistent with the overall purpose of the RRA and must not be used to "disrupt public order, impair the health of citizens, or interfere with the educational system of the state" and must not be "subject to any foreign domination." Second, local religious citizens must have a need to carry out collective religious activities frequently. Third, there must be religious personnel qualified to preside over the activities. Fourth, the site must have "necessary funds." Fifth, the site must be "rationally located" so as not to interfere with normal production and neighboring residents. Under the RRA, clergy must report to the Government after being selected pursuant to the rules of the relevant religious association.

SARA considers unregistered churches as existing outside the legal framework of the RRA, although prayer meetings and Bible study groups held among friends and family in homes are legal and do not require registration. SARA has not publicly defined the terms "family and friends." House churches report that local authorities frequently disrupted meetings of friends and family in private homes and arrested participants on the grounds that they were participating in illegal gatherings.

In order to receive tax-free charitable donations, a religious group must register as a charity with MOCA at the national or local level. House church groups and other unregistered religious groups are ineligible to receive tax-free status since they do not have legal status. The only religious group that has registered as a charity at the national level is the Amity Foundation, a state-approved Protestant group. Caritas, the social services branch of the Roman Catholic Church, operates in a few dioceses under the supervision of the CPA.

In 1999 the Government began banning groups that it determined to be "cults," without publicly defining the term. The Government banned the Falun Gong, the Guan Yin (also known as Guanyin Famin, or the Way of the Goddess of Mercy), and Zhong Gong (a qigong exercise discipline). The Government also considers several Protestant Christian groups to be cults, including the "Shouters" (founded in the United States in 1962), Eastern Lightning, Society of Disciples (Mentu Hui), Full Scope Church, Spirit Sect, New Testament Church, Three Grades of Servants (also known as San Ba Pu Ren), Association of Disciples, Lord God Sect, Established King Church, Unification Church, the Family of Love, and South China Church.

Under article 300 of the criminal law, "cult" members who "disrupt public order" or distribute publications may be sentenced to 3 to 7 years in prison, while "cult" leaders and recruiters may be sentenced to 7 years or more in prison.

During the period covered by this report, local officials damaged or destroyed several unregistered places of worship. There continues to be a significant shortage of temples, churches, and mosques and many of those that existed were overcrowded and in poor condition.

The criminal law states that government officials who deprive citizens of religious freedom may, in serious cases, be sentenced to up to 2 years in prison; however, there were no known cases of persons being punished under this statute.

Restrictions on Religious Freedom

During the period covered by this report, the Government's respect for religious freedom remained poor, especially for members of unregistered religious groups and groups the Government designated as "cults." The Government tends to perceive unregulated religious gatherings or groups as a potential challenge to its authority, and it attempts to control and regulate religious groups to prevent the rise of sources of authority outside the control of the Government and the CCP. In some regions government supervision of religious activity was minimal, and registered and unregistered churches existed openly side-by-side and were treated similarly by the authorities. In other regions local officials supervised religion strictly, and authorities placed pressure on unregistered churches and their members. Local regulations, provincial work reports, and other government and party documents continued to exhort officials to enforce vigorously government policy regarding unregistered churches.

Officials in many locations pressured unregistered religious groups, including house churches, to affiliate with one of the PRAs and register with government religious affairs authorities. Officials in some areas organized registration campaigns collecting the names, addresses, and sometimes the fingerprints of church leaders and worshippers. Some local authorities continued to harass religious groups that did not register by arresting and interrogating unregistered church leaders. In other regions government supervision of religious activity was less stringent and registered and unregistered churches coexisted openly. Despite the efforts at control in some areas, official sources, religious professionals, and members of both officially sanctioned and unregistered places of worship reported that the number of religious adherents in the country continued to grow.

Police sometimes closed unregistered places of worship, including Catholic churches and Protestant house churches with significant memberships, properties, financial resources, and networks. The Government closed churches in Zhejiang, Jilin, and Fujian Provinces during the reporting period. In some cases local officials destroyed the properties of unregistered religious groups. SARA considers unregistered churches to be illegal, although SARA has stated that prayer meetings and Bible study groups held among friends and family in private homes are legal and do not require registration. In some areas unregistered house churches with hundreds of members met openly with the knowledge of local authorities. In other areas house church meetings of more than a handful of family members and friends were proscribed. House churches could encounter greater difficulties when their membership grew, when they arranged for the regular use of facilities for the specific purpose of conducting religious activities, or when they forged links with other unregistered groups or with coreligionists overseas. Urban house churches were generally limited to meetings of a few dozen members or less, while meetings of unregistered Protestants in small cities and rural areas could number in the hundreds. It was also difficult for registered groups to register new places of worship, such as churches and mosques, even in areas with growing religious populations.

The Government authorized funding to build new places of worship for congregations affiliated with PRAs.

The Government continued to repress harshly religious groups which it designates cults, including the Falun Gong. As in past years, local authorities took steps to repress unregistered religious groups that grew quickly or publicly rejected the Government’s authority. Official tolerance for groups associated with Buddhism and Taoism has been greater than that for groups associated with other religions. Membership in the Falun Gong, the Xiang Gong, Guo Gong, and Zhong Gong qigong groups was still considered illegal. The Government also labeled folk religions as "feudal superstition," and in the past there were reports that followers sometimes were subject to harassment and repression.

Xinjiang authorities continued to use combating terrorism to justify placing restrictions on peaceful religious practices of Uighur Muslims, according to human rights NGOs. Because the Xinjiang authorities often did not distinguish carefully among those involved in peaceful activities in support of independence, "illegal" religious activities, and violent terrorism, it was often difficult to determine whether particular raids, detentions, arrests, or judicial punishments targeted those seeking to worship, those peacefully seeking political goals, or those engaged in violence. As a result, Xinjiang authorities sometimes erroneously charged religious believers with committing the "three evils" of terrorism, separatism, and extremism. While often targeted at Muslims, this tight control of religion in Xinjiang affected followers of other religions as well. During the reporting period, Xinjiang provincial-level Communist Party and government officials called for stronger management of religious affairs. In some areas of Xinjiang, officials restricted the building of mosques and the training of clergy and interfered with the teaching of Islam to children outside the home. Muslim teachers, professors, and university students in Xinjiang were not allowed to practice religion openly while on campus. Female university students and professors were discouraged from wearing headscarves. Some ethnic Tajiks in Xinjiang could not attend mosque until over age 30.

The law does not prohibit religious believers from holding public office; however, Communist Party membership is required for almost all high-level positions in Government, state-owned businesses, and many official organizations. Communist Party officials reiterated during the period covered by this report that party membership and religious belief are incompatible. The CCP reportedly has stated that party members who belong to religious organizations are subject to expulsion. The "Routine Service Regulations" of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) state explicitly that servicemen "may not take part in religious or superstitious activities." Muslims allegedly have been fired from government posts for praying during working hours. The Government required students to study the principles of Chinese Communism, an atheistic ideology.

Some Communist Party officials engage in religious activity, most commonly Buddhism or a folk religion. Leaders of government-approved religious groups, which are included in national and local government organizations usually to represent their constituency on cultural and educational matters, may be members of the CCP. The PRAs are represented in the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), an advisory forum that is led by the CCP and consults with social groups outside the Party. The National People's Congress (NPC) included several leaders of registered religious groups. Fu Tieshan, a bishop and vice-chairman of the CPA, was one of the vice chairmen of the NPC Standing Committee until his death in April 2007.

The Government does not have diplomatic relations with the Holy See and generally does not allow the CPA and its clergy to recognize the authority of the pope to make clerical appointments. This remained a significant reason for the persistence of a large unregistered Catholic church that remains unaffiliated with the Government and CPA. Pressure by the CPA on unregistered Catholic bishops to join the official Church continued, and some unregistered priests and bishops were detained. Despite some efforts toward rapprochement between the Government and the Vatican, the Vatican's diplomatic recognition of Taiwan and differences over selection of bishops remained the primary obstacles to improved relations. In January 2007 the Vatican issued an invitation to the Government to enter a dialogue on restoring diplomatic relations and announced that it would set up a permanent commission to handle relations with China. In June 2007 Pope Benedict issued an open letter to Chinese Catholics inviting them to resolve differences and calling on China to engage in "respectful and constructive dialogue" with the Vatican to normalize relations. An MFA spokesperson said that China advocates improvement in Sino-Vatican relations. A leader of the CPA said he hoped the Pope's letter would be of help in establishing China-Vatican ties.

In official Catholic churches, clerics lead prayers for the pope and pictures of the pope are displayed. An estimated 90 percent of official Catholic bishops have reconciled with the Vatican.

In January 2007 the Vatican approved the ordination of a mainland-selected Catholic priest to become bishop of Guangzhou Diocese, the first such backing given by the Holy See after bilateral ties were strained with the appointments in April and May 2006 of Bishops Ma Yingling of Kunming, Yunnan Province, and Liu Xinhong of Wuhu, Anhui Province, without Vatican approval. The Vatican criticized these ordinations as illicit. The CPA and SARA responded that the bishops had been democratically elected by priests of their dioceses, the Vatican was interfering in the country's internal affairs, and the appointments were required to fill vacancies. The disagreement over the appointments of Bishops Ma and Liu disrupted a period during which several bishops were appointed with both Government and Vatican approval. Many priests and bishops publicly acknowledged that the Vatican had approved their appointment. They suffered no punishment for this public stance, although the Government denied that the Vatican played any role in approving the country's clergy.

In fact, the large majority of bishops recognized by the Patriotic Association have been recognized by the Vatican either before or after their appointment by the Government. In a few cases, the bishop named by the state-sanctioned church conflicted directly with a bishop recognized by the Vatican, a situation that contributed significantly to tension between the Patriotic Association and the unregistered Catholic Church and to tension between the Vatican and the Government. The CPA said that 40 of China's nearly 100 dioceses have no bishop in place.

Unregistered groups are not legally permitted to offer theological training. Registered religious groups may sponsor individual students for study at one of the at least 76 government-recognized training institutions for clergy. Students who attend these institutes must demonstrate "political reliability," and all graduates must pass an examination on their theological and political knowledge to qualify for the clergy. Clergy from the PRAs go abroad for studies but sometimes have difficulty obtaining approval to study abroad. In most cases, foreign organizations provide funding for such training programs. Prospective clergy must obtain the sponsorship of a PRA to gain admittance to formal theological schools.

Institutions for religious leaders other than the officially recognized ones exist but cannot register as legal institutions. The quality of education at unregistered institutions varies. Such institutions risk being closed when they come to the attention of local authorities. Officials sometimes refuse to issue passports to religious leaders, especially those from unregistered groups. There is a severe shortage of trained clergy for both the registered and unregistered religious groups.

Senior government officials claimed that the country has no restrictions against minors practicing religious beliefs. Some Xinjiang officials told foreign observers that children under 18 were not permitted to attend religious services in mosques in Xinjiang. Local officials in Xinjiang prevented children from attending worship services in mosques or churches. However, during the reporting period, children were observed attending prayer services at mosques and Sunday schools at TSPM churches in Xinjiang.

Increasing interest in Christianity has resulted in a corresponding increase in the demand for Bibles and other Christian literature. The Government controls publication of all texts, including religious texts. Bibles and sacred texts of other religions may be purchased at bookstores and most officially recognized churches. Nevertheless, members of unregistered churches stated that the supply and distribution of Bibles in some places, particularly rural locations, was inadequate to meet the growing demand. Individuals cannot order Bibles directly from publishing houses, and purchases of large numbers of Bibles could bring unfavorable attention to the purchaser. Customs officials continued to monitor for the "smuggling" of Bibles and other religious materials into the country. Religious texts published without authorization, including Bibles and Qur'ans, may be confiscated and the unauthorized publishing houses closed. Religious adherents are subject to arrest and imprisonment for illegal publishing. Authorities sometimes confiscate Bibles in raids on house churches.

At the 2005 NPC, President Hu Jintao announced a nation-wide campaign to build a "Harmonious Society." During an October 2006 meeting with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, Jia Qinglin, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the country's top advisory body said: "China has engaged itself in building a harmonious society in which religion can play an important role." Jia called upon leaders of the PRAs to encourage their members to increase social services to the country’s neediest citizens.

The Roman Catholic Church forbids abortions and the use of artificial contraception. Many Protestant leaders also teach that abortion violates the Biblical commandment not to kill. In many parts of the country, government population control agencies require women to use contraception and to have an abortion if the pregnancy violates government population control regulations. In some provinces, government population control agencies may also forcibly sterilize men and women after they have had their first child. Many Chinese Catholics and Protestants consider the Government's birth limitation laws and policies a violation of their religious beliefs. In Guangxi Province a Protestant pastor protested when his wife was forced to have an abortion at 7 months. In Shandong Province a Christian woman who was six months' pregnant protested against the attempts of family planning officials to force her to have an abortion.

The Government permits Muslims to go on the Hajj to Mecca via the Muslim patriotic religious association, the Islamic Association of China (IAC). The IAC is the only organization that is legally authorized to conduct official Hajj tours. Muslims must apply to the IAC to secure a place on an official tour. Some Uighur Muslims have sought passage to Mecca from points outside the country for a variety of reasons, including to save costs and to avoid cumbersome restrictions and tests of political loyalty by the Government.

According to official reports, approximately 9,700 Chinese Muslims made the Hajj during the 2006-07 pilgrimage. The IAC said this was the highest number of Chinese pilgrims ever to participate in the Hajj. This number did not include participants on "independent hajj tours" for whom there were no official estimates but numbered in the thousands in previous years. In southern Xinjiang the Government reportedly published banners and slogans discouraging Hajj pilgrimages outside those organized by the IAC.

Citizens are not permitted to attend religious services conducted by foreigners. The Government continued to tolerate religious worship by foreigners as long as no citizens were present. The Government has stated it was willing to consider approving new religious organizations outside the five main faiths but had not done so at the end of the reporting period.

Foreigners are forbidden from proselytizing but may attend worship services at meetings points of registered religious groups. Many foreign registered Christian groups throughout the country have developed close ties with local officials, in some cases operating schools and homes for the care of the aged. Some foreign church organizations came under pressure to register with government authorities.

The Government sometimes made political demands on the leadership of registered groups. For example, authorities required clergy to publicly endorse government policies or denounce Falun Gong. In other areas, including Xinjiang and the TAR, authorities required clergy to participate in patriotic education.

In April 2007 Taoist organizations in China organized an international forum on the "Tao Te Ching" in Xian.

Abuses of Religious Freedom

During the period covered by this report, officials continued to scrutinize, and in some cases, harass unregistered religious and spiritual groups. In some areas government officials abused the rights of members of unregistered Protestant and Catholic groups, Muslim Uighurs, Tibetan Buddhists, and members of groups that the Government determined to be "cults," especially the Falun Gong spiritual movement.

Religious adherents and members of spiritual movements have been beaten, and some have died in police custody after being detained in connection with their religious belief or practice.

The Government detained, arrested, or sentenced to prison terms many religious leaders and adherents. The religious adherents claimed that the activities they were arrested for related to their religious practice. However, the Government denied jailing anyone solely because of his or her religion. Local authorities used an administrative process to punish members of unregistered religious groups. Citizens may be sentenced by a nonjudicial panel of police and local authorities to up to 3 years in reeducation-through-labor camps. The Government held many religious adherents and members of spiritual movements in such facilities during the period covered by this report. In some areas security authorities used threats, demolition of unregistered property, extortion, interrogation, detention, and at times beatings and torture to harass leaders of unauthorized groups and their followers. Unregistered religious groups that preached beliefs outside the bounds of officially approved doctrine (such as the imminent coming of the Apocalypse or groups that have charismatic leaders) often were singled out for particularly severe harassment. Observers attributed the unorthodox beliefs of some religious groups to the lack of educational opportunities for clergy and the lack of access to sacred religious texts and supplementary readings.

Offenses related to membership in unregistered religious groups are often classified as crimes of disturbing the social order. According to the Law Yearbook of China, 8,224 cases of disturbing the social order or cheating by the use of superstition were filed in 2004, of which 8,116 resulted in formal charges, criminal or administrative punishment. However, religious leaders and worshippers faced criminal and administrative punishment on a wide range of charges, including those related to the Government's refusal to allow members of unregistered groups to assemble, travel, and publish freely or in connection with its ban on proselytizing.

According to reports from foreigners living in the country, religious organizations, and NGOs, including the China Aid Association, a religious freedom advocacy group, the Government expelled as many as 100 foreign Christians from the United States, Australia, Canada, Israel, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, and South Korea in the spring of 2007. As detailed in a July 9, 2007 report by the China Aid Association, the campaign, reportedly called "Typhoon Number Five," was intended to combat infiltration by foreign religious groups and to tighten restrictions on unregistered religious groups. Police interrogated the members and leaders of several house churches in the spring of 2007 about connections with foreigners and potential plans to disrupt the 2008 Olympic Games.

Some Protestant Christians who worshipped outside of government-approved venues, including in their homes, continued to face detention and abuse, especially for attempting to meet in large groups, traveling within and outside of the country for religious meetings, and otherwise holding peaceful religious assemblies in unregistered venues. Police and other security officials sometimes disrupted Protestant religious meetings.

In the spring of 2007, members of the China House Church Alliance (CHCA), a network of house church groups that reportedly has 300,000 members, were reportedly detained and interrogated, particularly about their connections to foreigners and alleged plans to disrupt the 2008 Olympic Games. The detentions and interrogations took place in Beijing, Jilin, Anhui, and Hunan.

On June 29, 2007, the Shandong government sentenced Zhang Geming and Sun Qingwen, two house church leaders to 1 year of reeducation through labor each for participation "using an evil cult to obstruct the law." Four other house church leaders who were arrested with them were fined $132 each.

In June 2007 Beijing house church activist Hua Huaiqi was sentenced in a closed trial to 6 months in prison for obstruction of justice. Police reportedly beat him in jail and poured cold water over him in frigid weather. In April 2007 the Beijing Intermediate People’s Court rejected the appeal of Shuang Shuying, the 76-year-old mother of Beijing house church activist Hua Huaiqi. Shuang was sentenced to 2 years in jail for destruction of public and private property. She claimed that she was defending herself from being struck by an oncoming police car when her cane struck the headlights of the car. Shuang was placed in a medical center under police surveillance after being sentenced because she suffered from heart problems and diabetes.

In May 2007 police in Aksu City, Xinjiang, arrested approximately 30 house church leaders who met with Christians from the United States. Four American Christians were interrogated in connection with the meeting and later expelled from China. Six of the house church leaders were accused of involvement in "evil cult activities." Eyewitnesses reported that two of the arrested leaders had been physically abused during interrogation.

In April 2007 police in Liaoning Province sentenced Gu Changrong and Gu Zhaohong, brother and sister members of the Society of Disciples (Mentu Hui), to 1 year terms of reeducation through labor for allegedly telling Liu Changhai, a local Communist Party member, about Christianity. Liu reportedly called the Communist Party Secretary in Qidaohe and complained that the two tried to persuade him to quit the Party and join the Society of Disciples. Police confiscated several Bibles from the home of Gu Zhaohong. A family member alleged that police may have compelled Gu Changrong, who is illiterate, into signing documents admitting guilt. Police did not notify family members of the arrests or sentences.

In March 2007 police in Henan province arrested and detained CHCA Vice President and Pastor Dong Quanyu and his wife, Li Huage, for 10 days for "disturbing public order." Public security bureau officers reportedly beat Li Huage severely. Police also confiscated property from their home.

In March 2007 public security personnel in Zhangshi Village in Henan Province reportedly attacked members of a house church group as they left an Easter service. Members of the group reported that they were forced into police cars, that police detained them without producing arrest warrants and interrogated them for up to 24 hours. Police interrogated three leaders of the group, 71-year-old Ma Wenqing, Zhang Jinzhi, and Zhang Liang, and reportedly stripped two women of their clothing. The detained Christians alleged that police tortured them into confessing that they were members of an evil cult.

In February 2007 police and local RAB officials reportedly raided a prayer meeting held in a private home in Shuanghuang Township, Jiangsu Province. The police photographed those in attendance and took down their names. When some of the individuals refused to give their names, police reportedly beat them. Police forced the owner of the home, Tan Jianwei, to sign a statement agreeing not to hold religious activities in his home.

In February 2007 officials released Liu Fenggang from prison 6 months before his sentence was set to expire. Liu, Xu Yonghai, and Zhang Shengqiwere imprisoned for allegedly "providing national intelligence to overseas organizations" by reporting a house church destruction case to overseas Christian organizations. During his imprisonment, Liu was hospitalized five times for serious heart disease and diabetes.

In January 2007 police in Anhui province arrested Pastor Chen Jiaxi of Chencun Village for distributing Bibles and Christian literature without charge. Police tried Chen on the charge of "illegal business management."

In November 2006 the Government executed leaders of the Three Grades of Servants Church, which it designated a cult. The leaders, Xu Shuangfu, Zhang Min, Zhu Lixing, and Ben Zhonghai were sentenced to death for alleged murders of members of Eastern Lightning, a religious group that the Government had also designated a cult. Eleven other church members were sentenced to jail terms of 3 to 15 years. Even before the verdict in Xu's case had been announced, Xu's conviction was reportedly introduced as evidence in the trials of other group members, according to reliable reports. Many detained or charged with membership in the cult did not use the name Three Grades of Servants Church but instead asserted they were members of their own unaffiliated house church.

In July 2006 officials demolished a large house church that was under construction in Xiaoshan County, Zhejiang Province. Police reportedly beat hundreds of house church members who arrived to protest the demolition. Officials reportedly had denied repeated requests for permission to build the church. The Government claimed to have offered the church alternative sites on which to build the church. However, the religious group said that the suggested properties were not suitable for building a church.

In June 2006 Henan Province house Christian pastor Zhang Rongliang was sentenced to 7 years and 6 months in prison on charges of obtaining a passport through fraud and illegal border crossing.

In June 2006 police in Langzhong City, Szechuan Province, detained eight house church Christians who were members of a CHCA church. Four leaders of the church, Li Ming, Jin Jinrong, Wang Yuan, and Li Mingbo, were arrested when they went to visit the members of their congregation at the public security office. Three other members of the church were also detained by public security officials when they inquired about members of the church. House church members claimed they were beaten by police. One of the men in the church was reportedly beaten unconscious and then detained for 7 days for "assaulting a policeman." Another church member, Li Ming, was reportedly beaten and kicked by police and suffered head injuries and internal injuries. The four leaders of the group were sentenced to 2 years of reeducation through labor.

In May 2006 police in Langzhong, Szechuan also arrested 30 leaders of another house church and detained 14 of them for an unknown period of time.

In May 2006 several house church activists were detained in Henan Province's Fugou County.

In April 2006 the Government reportedly sentenced Li Huimin to reeducation in Henan Province for holding house church meetings at his home.

In March 2006 police reportedly broke the ribs of disabled pastor Li Gongshe during a raid on his church in Wen County, Henan Province.

In February 2006 security officials detained documentary filmmaker and U.S. legal permanent resident Wu Hao after Wu filmed house church services in Beijing and arranged an interview with Christian human rights attorney Gao Zhisheng, who was placed under house arrest in August 2006. Wu was released in July 2006.

In February 2006 Lou Yuanqi was reportedly detained for holding unauthorized church services in Xinjiang.

In December 2006 Gao Zhisheng was convicted of "inciting subversion." Gao received a 3 year sentence, suspended for 5 years, and 1 year deprivation of political rights. After suspending his sentence, the Government placed Gao under house arrest in Beijing. His wife and two children continued to be harassed and detained by authorities. In December 2005 Gao sent an open letter to President Hu Jintao highlighting abuses of Falun Gong practitioners. The letter described torture of Falun Gong practitioners and the extra-legal activities of the "610 office."

In 2006 house church pastors Liu Yuhua and Wang Zaiqing were sentenced to imprisonment for publishing Christian literature. They were charged with "involvement in illegal business practices."

On Christmas Day 2005 police reportedly raided an unregistered church in Manasu County, Xinjiang, destroying property, and detained several worshippers. More than 200 were reportedly detained, including Pastor Guo Xianyao.

In November 2005 the Government sentenced Beijing-based house church Pastor Cai Zhuohua to 3 years in jail for operating an illegal business based on his work publishing Christian literature. Two of Cai's relatives received shorter terms of imprisonment on the same charges.

In September 2005 government agents reportedly broke bones of Christian businessman Tong Qimiao at a police station in Kashgar, Xinjiang, while he was being interrogated about the activities of local house churches.

In August 2005 police reportedly raided a training class in Jiangxi Province for Sunday school teachers.

In July 2005 the Government reportedly detained one hundred Sunday school students in Hebei Province.

In July 2005 six members of the group Way of the Goddess of Mercy (Guanyin Famen), which the Government considers a "cult," were sentenced to 2 to 4 years in prison for producing material for circulation involving a cult organization.

In April 2007, family planning officials in Baise, Guanguxi Province, forced Wei Linrong, the wife of house church pastor Liang Yage to have an abortion against her will. Ten officials took Ms. Wei, who was 7 months' pregnant, from her home to a hospital where doctors induced delivery. According to media reports, Liang and his wife explicitly objected to the forced abortion because it forced them to violate their religious beliefs.

In some locations local authorities reportedly forced unregistered Catholic priests and believers to renounce ordinations approved by the Holy See, join the official church, or face a variety of punishments including fines, job loss, detentions, and having their children barred from school. Some Catholic officials were forced into hiding. Ongoing harassment of unregistered bishops and priests was reported in recent years, including government surveillance and repeated short detentions.

Numerous detentions of unofficial Catholic clergy were reported, in particular in Hebei Province, traditionally home to many unregistered Catholics.

There was no new information about unregistered Bishop Su Zhimin, who has been unaccounted for since his reported detention in 1997. The Government had not responded to requests to clarify his status by the end of the reporting period.

There was no information about the whereabouts of Bishop Zhao Zhendong, the bishop of Xuanhua, Hebei, who was arrested in December 2004.

There was no information about the whereabouts of Bishop Shi Enxiang, who was arrested in April 2001.

In June 2007 police arrested 73-year-old Bishop Jia Zhiguo of Zhengding, Hubei, for the tenth time since 2004. Security officials held him at an unknown location until his release on June 22, 2007.

In March 2007 police in Shaanxi province detained Bishop Wu Qinjing, the bishop of Zhouzhi. His whereabouts were unknown. According to a government document released on March 9, 2007, Bishop "Wu Qinjing should not run any church affairs as a bishop and should not interfere with the Zhouzhi diocese management." The document told Catholics to "draw a line of demarcation" around the bishop and stated that the Government had been reeducating Bishop Wu since May 2006.

In December 2006 security officials arrested nine unregistered priests near Baoding, Hebei.

In September 2006 authorities detained Bishop Wu Qinjing, who was ordained in October 2005 with the approval of the Holy See but without government permission, for 5 days. He was forced to sign a document stating that his ordination was illegal.

In September 2006 unregistered priests Shao Zhoumin and Jiang Sunian were detained in Shenzhen upon their return from Europe. Shao and Jiang reportedly falsified documents to facilitate travel to Rome and were sentenced to 9-and 11-month prison sentences. In prison Father Shao reportedly lost his hearing. Both priests were denied visitors in prison.

In August 2006 Hebei authorities released Bishop An Shuxin, Bishop Su’s auxiliary bishop, but reportedly arrested Father Li Huisheng and approximately 90 Catholic worshippers.

In Hebei, the region with the highest number of Catholics, the Government reportedly pressured an unofficial church to join the CPA. In August 2006 police in Xiwanzi arrested and tortured Father Li Huisheng and then released him. Ninety members of Father Li’s church protested his arrest outside police headquarters. Police beat the protestors and forced them to disperse. Later that evening, approximately 500 police launched a raid to rearrest Father Li and the church members. The whereabouts of 20 persons were unknown. Father Li was sentenced to 7 years of imprisonment for "inciting the masses against the Government." Another priest from Xiwanzi, Father Wang Zhong, disappeared. In July 2006 Xiwanzi authorities also arrested and detained 82-year-old Bishop Yao Liang. Xiwanzi authorities also forbade Catholics from making an annual traditional pilgrimage to Mount Muozi in Inner Mongolia.

In April 2007, Ablikim Kadeer, a son of Uighur Muslim activist, Rebiya Kadeer, was sentenced to 9 years in prison and 3 years deprivation of political rights, reportedly after confessing to charges of "instigating and engaging in secessionist activities." In November 2006 Alim Kadeer, another son of Rebiya Kadeer, was sentenced to 7 years in prison and fined $62,500. Qahar Abdurehim, a third son of Rebiya Kadeer, was fined $12,500 for tax evasion but not jailed. Authorities reportedly beat and tortured Alim and Ablikim. In June 2006 Xinjiang officials charged Alim, Ablikim, and Qahar with state security and economic crimes just days after Rebiya Kadeer was elected president of the Uighur American Association, an NGO that advocates for the human rights, including religious freedom, of the Uighur people.

In August 2006 the Government sentenced Huseyin Celil to life imprisonment for "separatist activities." Celil was a popular Uighur Muslim imam in Kashgar before emigrating to Canada in 2001. Celil reportedly spoke about religious freedom and nonviolent struggle against human rights violations during his sermons and used a megaphone to amplify his call to prayers from the mosque, which attracted government scrutiny. Celil left China in 1995 and continued to preach at a local mosque in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Celil then emigrated to Canada in 2001. In May 2006 Celil was arrested by Uzbek authorities while visiting Tashkent and deported to China. Chinese authorities claimed that he was involved in the assassination of a Uighur leader in Kyrgyzstan, despite Celil's denials that he was Guler Dilaver, a suspect in the assassination. Celil's family claims he was being punished for his political and religious activism. NGOs claimed that the Government also committed numerous other violations of Celil's right to due process.

The Government tightly monitored the publication of Islamic religious materials. In July 2005 several Uighur Muslims were reportedly detained for possession of an illegal religious book called the Mishkat-ul Misabih and other illegal religious activities in Xinjiang.

Uighur Muslim Aminan Momixi was detained in August 2005 after teaching the Qur'an to more than 30 students in her home. Provincial officials stated that she was released after a period of education and training, but did not respond to requests to clarify her whereabouts.

Between July and September 2006, an estimated 4,000 to 6,000 Uighur Muslims traveled to Islamabad, Pakistan, seeking Hajj visas from the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Islamabad. However, applicants were denied visas, reportedly due to an agreement between the Saudi Government and the Chinese Government restricting individuals from applying for Hajj visas in a third country. After applicants held extended protests at the Saudi Embassy, the Chinese Ambassador to Pakistan reportedly told them to return to Xinjiang to wait and join government-sponsored Hajj tours the following year. The Ambassador reportedly also threatened applicants with loss of employment and pension, fines, or retribution against their family members if they did not comply. Most of the group returned to Xinjiang, although approximately 1,000 applicants reportedly received visas in Pakistan. Some expressed concern that the price of the government-sponsored Hajj tours was inflated and preferred to travel on their own in an attempt to reduce costs. Others stated that they did not want to go on government-sponsored Hajj tours because of a requirement that they profess loyalty to the CCP.

There were credible reports of torture and deaths in custody of Falun Gong practitioners in past years, and overseas Falun Gong groups claimed that such incidents continued. According to Falun Gong practitioners in the United States, since 1999 more than 100,000 practitioners have been detained for engaging in Falun Gong practices, admitting that they adhere to the teachings of Falun Gong, or refusing to criticize the organization or its founder. The organization reported that its members have been subject to excessive force, abuse, rape, detention, and torture, and that some of its members, including children, have died in custody.

Some foreign observers estimated that at least half of the 250,000 officially recorded inmates in the country's reeducation-through-labor camps are Falun Gong adherents. Falun Gong sources overseas placed the number even higher. Hundreds of Falun Gong adherents were also incarcerated in legal education centers, a form of administrative detention, upon completion of their reeducation-through-labor sentences. Government officials denied the existence of such "legal education" centers. According to the Falun Gong, hundreds of its practitioners have been confined to psychiatric institutions and forced to take medications or undergo electric shock treatment against their will. In March 2006 U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture Manfred Nowak reported that Falun Gong practitioners accounted for 66 percent of victims of alleged torture while in government custody.

In May 2007 the Russian Government repatriated Falun Gong practitioner Dr. Gao Chunman back to China. Gao was a professor at Qinghua University and had refugee status from the United Nations. According to Gao's wife (a Russian citizen), Gao was kidnapped, and she feared that he would be severely punished by the Chinese Government. The Russian Government also deported Falun Gong practitioner Ma Hui to China in the spring of 2007.

In May 2006 Yuan Yuju and Liang Jinhui, relatives of a Hong Kong journalist who works for a television station supportive of the Falun Gong, were sentenced to reeducation-through-labor "for using an illegal cult to organize and obstruct justice," relating to their distribution of Falun Gong materials.

In April 2006 and thereafter, overseas Falun Gong groups claimed that a hospital in Sujiatun, Shenyang, was the site of a "concentration camp" and of mass organ harvesting, including from live prisoners. In response to the allegations, the Government opened the facility in question to diplomatic observers and foreign journalists. Observers found nothing inconsistent with the operation of a normal hospital.

Zheng Ruihuan and Liu Yinglan were reportedly detained in Shandong Province in July 2005 for practicing Falun Gong.

Forced Religious Conversion

There were no reports of forced religious conversion, including of minor U.S. citizens who had been abducted or illegally removed from the United States, or of the refusal to allow such citizens to be returned to the United States.

Improvements and Positive Developments in Respect for Religious Freedom

The Government continued to emphasize the role of religion in promoting a "Harmonious Society," allowed the PRAs to expand their cooperation with religious groups in other countries, and funded the building of new places for worship by registered religious groups. For example, in spring 2007 the Dallas Theological Seminary (DTS) began offering on-line, graduate-level theological training courses to Chinese clergy and students via the TSPM's Yanjing Union Theological Seminary outside of Beijing. DTS, with input from RAB officials and the CCC, developed coursework that may lead to a Certificate in Graduate Studies for Chinese students. Several faculty members at Yanjing completed courses offered through the DTS program.

Chinese citizens who worshipped outside the PRAs continued to assert their right to religious freedom under the law. Lawsuits in multiple provinces were reportedly effective in deterring harassment by local authorities. In May 2007 police in Shandong Province settled a lawsuit brought against them by a house church plaintiff, Tian Yinghua. Tian held a regular church service in her living room. Police raided the service, detained the 31 members of the house church, and ordered Tian to serve 10 days in jail. As part of the settlement, the police issued a formal apology, promised not to bother the church again, and paid Tian damages of 13 cents. Police reportedly honored the terms of the settlement, including the promise not to harass the church.

The Shanghai Government allowed an American company to open a TSPM church for its employees on company premises. Both Chinese and foreign employees of the company attended the services.

Section III. Societal Abuses and Discrimination

In some parts of the country, there was a tense relationship between registered and unregistered Christian churches and, according to press reports, between some members of unregistered church groups. There were reports of divisions within both the official Protestant church and the house church movement over issues of doctrine; in both the registered and unregistered Protestant churches, there are conservative and more liberal groups. In other areas the two groups coexisted without problems. In some provinces, including Hebei, unregistered and official Catholic communities sometimes had a tense relationship.

In the past Muslims and Tibetan Buddhists complained about the presence of Christian missionaries in their communities. Christian officials reported some friction in rural areas between adherents of folk religions and Christians who object to some folk religion practices. Religious and ethnic minority groups, such as Tibetans and Uighurs, experienced societal discrimination not only because of their religious beliefs but also because of their status as ethnic minorities with languages and cultures different from the typically wealthier Han Chinese. There was also occasional tension between the Han and Hui Muslims.

Section IV. U.S. Government Policy

President Bush raised religious freedom issues during meetings with President Hu Jintao in St. Petersburg in July 2006, and Hanoi in November 2006. Senior U.S. officials called on the Government to halt the abusive treatment of religious adherents and to respect religious freedom. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte raised concerns about religious freedom during multiple meetings with senior Chinese officials. Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Karen Hughes spoke at a state-sanctioned Chinese church service during her January 2007 visit to Beijing.

The U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, and the consulates general in Chengdu, Guangzhou, Shanghai, and Shenyang made concerted efforts to encourage greater religious freedom in the country. U.S. officials condemned abuses while supporting positive trends within the country. In exchanges with the Government, including with religious affairs officials, U.S. officials consistently urged both central and local authorities to respect citizens' rights to religious freedom and release all those serving prison sentences for religious activities. U.S. officials protested vigorously whenever there were credible reports of religious harassment or discrimination in violation of international laws and standards, and they requested information in cases of alleged mistreatment in which the facts were incomplete or contradictory. On numerous occasions the Department of State, the Embassy, and the consulates protested government actions to curb freedom of religion and freedom of conscience, including the arrests of Falun Gong followers, Tibetan Buddhists, Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang, and Catholic and Protestant clergy and believers. The Embassy routinely raised reported cases of detention and abuse of religious practitioners with relevant Chinese government officials.

At the same time, U.S. officials argued to the country's leaders that freedom of religion would strengthen, not harm, the country. U.S. officials encouraged the Government to engage the growth of faith-based aid by both registered and unregistered religious groups. In April 2007, the Department of State's Office of International Religious Freedom hosted Madame Cao Shengjie, head of the China Christian Council, on a visit to the White House Office of Faith-Based Initiatives. U.S. officials also encouraged the Government to allow greater freedom to its religious citizens to engage in peaceful activities as a means of countering the appeal of religious extremists.

The Embassy and consulates also collected information about abuses and maintained contacts with a wide spectrum of religious leaders within religious communities, including bishops, priests, and ministers of the official Christian and Catholic churches, as well as Taoist, Muslim, and Buddhist leaders. U.S. officials also met with leaders and members of the unofficial Christian churches. The Department of State's nongovernmental contacts included experts on religion in the country, human rights organizations, and religious groups in the United States.

The Department of State brought a number of religious leaders and scholars to the United States on international visitor programs to see firsthand the role that religion plays in U.S. society.

During the period covered by this report, U.S. Ambassador Clark T. Randt, Jr., highlighted problems of religious freedom and cases of individual religious prisoners of conscience in his public speeches and in his private diplomacy with senior officials. Officials from the Embassy and the four consulates met with government officials responsible for religion and with clergy or practitioners in official and unofficial religious groups. Ambassador at Large for Religious Freedom John V. Hanford III met with several religious freedom activists in Washington, D.C.

Since 1999 the Secretary of State has designated the country as a CPC under the IRFA for particularly severe violations of religious freedom. Economic measures in effect against the country under the IRFA relate to restriction of exports of crime control and detection instruments and equipment (Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 1990 and 1991, P.L. 101-246).


Released on September 14, 2007








Uyghur American Association (UAA)
1700 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Suite 400 Washington, DC 20006
Tel: (202) 349-1496 :: Fax: (202) 349-1491 :: Email: info@uyghuramerican.org

From:http://uyghuramerican.org/articles/1109/1/International-Religious-Freedom-Report-2007/index.html

The Uyghurs in Uyghuristan – The Malaise Grows

Rémi Castets

After September 11th 2001, the Chinese regime strove to include its repression of Uyghur opposition within the international dynamic of the struggle against Islamic terrorist networks.
Notes de la rédaction
Translated from the French original by Philip Liddell
Notes de la rédaction Plan Texte Notes Citation Auteur



Sommaire
Article précédent
Article suivant
Plan
A turbulent historical and political context
The origins of Uyghur malaise: colonisation and socio-economic stratification
Elite expectations and nationalism among the Uyghurs of Xinjiang
Reassertion of identity and Islamic revival among the Uyghurs of Xinjiang
The rise and fall of two clandestine political movements of some stature
The 1990s: the turn towards repression
More disturbances and more radicalisation during the 1990s
The spread of radical Islam in Xinjiang
The Islamist faction in Xinjiang: a marginal threat but useful to the Chinese regime
The Chinese regime and the Uyghur dilemma

Texte intégral

1 Over the past twenty years, the unrest in Xinjiang has intensified and Uyghur nationalist feeling has strengthened. This study aims to throw light on the causes of the current rise of Uyghur nationalism and the forms it has taken. We shall draw attention to the determining effect of a socio-political context driven by colonial logics in order to explain how the nationalist ideology has been reinforced, with its aim of restoring to the Uyghurs—or more generally to the Turkic-speaking population of Xinjiang—the reins of political power within a truly autonomous or even independent entity. We shall also underline the impact of recent changes within the political context of China and Central Asia1.
1 This study is based mainly on data gathered by the author (...)
A turbulent historical and political context
2 Xinjiang (East Turkistan2), which was annexed by China in the mid-eighteenth century, is mainly populated by Turkic-speaking3 Muslims4, the majority of whom are Uyghurs5 (see Table 1). Despite a long tradition of exchanges with China, these people are linked, primarily by ties of culture and religion, to the Central Asian world. Probably this is one reason why, though they are becoming increasingly integrated with China, they have never very willingly accepted the idea of sharing a common destiny with the Chinese people. However, looking beyond questions of culture, other factors at different times have contributed to weakening Chinese sovereignty over this region. Thus, during the first half of the twentieth century, driven by the local elite in contact with Turkey and with the Tatars of Russia, Pan-Turkist reformism6 put down the first ideological markers of what were to become Xinjiang’s anti-colonial movements7. At a time when Chinese power at the centre was weakening and the great powers (such as Britain and Russia) were attempting to exploit the various political factions to build up their influence, two independent republics were founded in Xinjiang. The Turk Islamic Republic of East Turkistan (TIRET) was led by the emirs of Khotan and by anti-communist Pan-Turkists and was centred on the region of Khotan and Kashgar (1933 and 1934)8. And then, between 1944 and 1949, the East Turkistan Republic (ETR) was supported by the Soviets and based in the three northern districts of Xinjiang along the frontier with the USSR9.
2 Sharki Turkistan in Uyghur.
3 Historically, these communities shared the various (...)
4 These Turkic-speaking populations have in common to be (...)
5 Until the twentieth century, these populations, (...)
6 Pan-Turkism, which was partly confused with Jadidism in (...)
7 Masami Hamada, “La transmission du mouvement (...)
8 Andrew D. Forbes, Warlords and Muslims in Chinese Central (...)
9 Linda Benson, The Ili Rebellion: The Moslem Challenge to (...)
3 From 1949 onwards, the re-emergence of a new and strong centralised power enabled China to reassert sovereignty over the region. The communist regime then introduced a nationalities policy modelled on the Soviet pattern: 55 national minorities (shaoshu minzu), together with the Han, make up the Chinese nation. Ever since, for the first time in China, this policy has guaranteed the recognition of the linguistic and cultural identities of the national minorities, while granting them certain advantages, helping them to integrate within the new system10.
10 Barry Sautman, “Preferential Policies for Ethnic (...)
4 At the same time, once the opposition of Pan-Turkist separatists and the last of the underground rebels had been eradicated, the province of Xinjiang was transformed, in 1955, into an autonomous region. But this autonomy was in reality only symbolic, and contrasted sharply with the real political autonomy that many had been hoping for. Indeed, the region’s political system remains under the control of the Communist Party, itself dominated by the original Han population of China’s interior. The shortcomings of this system built up a powerful sense of frustration, preventing Uyghur society from realising many of its aspirations and from challenging certain policies it had overwhelmingly rejected; of these, undoubtedly the most unpopular was the colonisation of the region.
5 From the 1950s onwards, the communist regime encouraged the settlement of Han population centres in order to secure, control and exploit the region, which is rich in hydrocarbons, mineral resources and virgin agricultural land11. Since 1949, the region has seen a massive inflow of Han immigrants mainly directed there by the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC) (Xinjiang shengchan jianche bingtuan). Originally, this organisation had helped former soldiers demobilised after the Civil War to settle down, by providing some advantages to its members. These corps of “peasant-soldiers” sent to the margins of the country to open up new pioneer areas did not survive the Cultural Revolution, except in Xinjiang where they were revitalised during the 1980s in order to pursue demographic colonisation while boosting the manpower needed to provide security for the region. Subsidised up to 80% by the central government, the XPCCs today control nearly one-third of the local farmed land and produce about a quarter of the provincial industrial output12. During the 1950s, the XPCCs had about a hundred thousand members; today their numbers are above 2.4 million, of whom 90% are Han (that is, one-third of the Han living “officially” in Xinjiang13). Thanks to the XPCCs, and also to migratory inflows not directly controlled by the state, the Han population has risen from 6.7% of the region’s population in 1949 to about 40% today, that is, more than seven million out of a total of 18.5 million inhabitants (see Table 1). But colonisation has not stabilised the region—far from it. Its socio-economic repercussions, together with Peking’s domineering attitude towards the regional political system, have generated a malaise that has lent new vigour in recent years to Uyghur nationalism and separatism.
11 This colonisation policy, for example, has just been (...)
12 James D. Seymour, “Xinjiang’s Production and (...)
13 It is hard to calculate the real number of Han living in (...)
6 This phenomenon has been catalysed at the same time by changes in the political context of the region. Indeed, the victory of the Afghan mujaheddin over the Red Army and, with the break-up of the Soviet Union, the independence of the central Asian republics have galvanised Uyghur separatism. Many of the militants have seen in the emergence of national states as homelands for the other large Turkic populations of Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kirghizstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan . . .), the justification of their own aspirations to independence. Moreover, by reason of the cultural and religious ties that the Uyghurs share with the rest of Central Asia, these events have given them hopes of drawing new support from beyond their own borders. This potentiality for destabilisation, the concomitant swell of unrest in Xinjiang and the rise of Islamism14 in Central Asia during the 1990s have led Peking to react.
14 By Islamism, we shall understand any movement led by (...)
7 China, torn between the necessity for opening its frontiers to economic inflows and the wish to isolate Uyghur opposition from any exterior support or “subversive” influence, has combined its policy of speeding up the region’s economic development with strengthening its security collaboration with its neighbours, pursuing demographic colonisation and stiffening its repression of those political activities that it considers unlawful. But, by failing to take account of either the destabilising impact of colonisation on Uyghur society or the demand for self-government among the local population, these policies could not solve the real problems behind the growth of unrest.
The origins of Uyghur malaise: colonisation and socio-economic stratification
8 Colonisation and its socio-economic consequences are much disliked by the Uyghurs: they constitute the main grievance among the protest movements. Indeed, colonisation tends, through a complex process, to exclude Xinjiang’s national minorities from the benefits of economic advance. In attempting to stabilise the region, the central state has made significant investments15 that have contributed to developing the local economy. This region, once among the poorest in China, today, within the provinces of China’s “Great West”16, now boasts the highest per capita GDP; in these terms it ranks twelfth among all China’s provinces17. However, these encouraging macro-economic figures hide pronounced inequalities that apply along ethnic lines. To Uyghur eyes, the investments are directed first towards the areas of colonisation18, and have benefited the Han colonists most of all. Thus, the per capita GDP in Han areas is far higher than that in areas where the Uyghurs are still in the majority (see Table 2). The low figure for GDP per head in the Tarim Basin, where three-quarters of Xinjiang’s Uyghur population is concentrated, makes it likely that a significant number of families have incomes below the Chinese poverty threshold and even further beneath the threshold set by the international organisations19.
15 Bearing in mind the structural deficit of the autonomous (...)
16 In January 2000, Peking launched the campaign it called (...)
17 2002 Zhongguo tongji nianjian (Statistical Yearbook of (...)
18 The main pioneer areas were opened up along the (...)
19 The threshold set by the international organisations is (...)
9 At the same time, these differences in income imposed along ethnic lines underlie unequal access to the educational system—which, in turn, serves to reinforce the economic inequalities. In effect, the inability of the poorest people to finance their children’s schooling perpetuates—even more than linguistic handicaps20 and a sometimes discriminatory job-recruitment system—socio-professional inequalities condemning much of the Uyghur population to the lowest rungs of society.
20 In Xinjiang, bearing in mind the omnipresence of (...)
The peoples of Xinjiang
10 Theoretically, the Chinese education system is supposed to make it easier for minorities to climb the social scale, by means of a system of quotas and university scholarships. However the partial withdrawal of the state from financing the education system has led to an increase in schooling costs and falling numbers of scholarships. With the liberalisation of the Chinese economy, some financial security is more and more necessary in order to pursue one’s studies. The poorest families do not have the means to provide a full education for their children; and they have to restrict their years at school. While Han families, usually urban and better off, can extend their children’s education, and send them to the best establishments, the children of the minority communities are unable to complete their secondary education (see Table 3), which means they leave school with fewer qualifications (see Table 4).
11 These differences in educational funding combined with recruitment methods that are often discriminatory in the private sector21 tend to perpetuate, over a period of several decades, socio-professional stratification: Uyghurs are penalised in comparison with the Han. The national minorities in Xinjiang are over-represented at the bottom of the socio-professional scale and the Han are over-represented at the top. Thus, while the national minorities represented nearly 54% of Xinjiang’s population in 1990, they accounted for more than 76% of its agricultural workforce (as against 69.4% in 1982 when they were 52.8% of the total population), less than 41% of those employed in liberal and technical professions and less than 30% of managers and administrators22.
21 The continuous influx of the Han produces on the labour (...)
22 Emily Hannum and Yu Xie, “Ethnic stratification in (...)
12 As the national minorities descend the socio-economic scale in Xinjiang, their living standards become more precarious because China has almost no social security system whatever. According to the 1990 census, the infant mortality rate among the national minorities in Xinjiang was 3.6 times higher than among the Han and their life expectancy was 62.9 years as against 71.4 for the Han. At the same time, unemployment among young Uyghurs has led to higher crime rates and drug-taking—though these are culturally alien to this Muslim society. Poverty, and also the inequalities mentioned above, give Uyghurs the sense that they are excluded from economic growth to the benefit of the Han. The status of “second-rate” Chinese citizen contrasts with the promises of wealth and equality made by the regime at the time of Xinjiang’s “peaceful liberation”, and it has led many Uyghurs to think that they have been fooled by Peking’s communist pretensions and that, in reality, they are living under the yoke of a colonial regime.
Elite expectations and nationalism among the Uyghurs of Xinjiang
13 It is suggested, in the debate over the notion of internal colonialism23, that under administrations that are colonial or perceived as such, socio-economic stratification along ethnic lines around the peripheries of some states is likely to encourage an increasing sense of identity and the rise of nationalism. Even though this kind of approach does not explain all the factors and paradigms entering the equation in the birth and the growing influence of nationalism in Xinjiang since the start of the twentieth century, it does help us to see how such inequalities have favoured the strengthening of Uyghur nationalism over the past twenty years. Indeed, going beyond cultural identity, socio-economic and political stratification in Xinjiang has brought many Uyghurs to view themselves as a lower-grade community, separate from the central community (that is to say, the Han) that dominates the economic and political systems. To that extent, it has favoured the emergence of anti-colonial nationalism24, fuelled by the distinctive identity of the Uyghurs to legitimise the establishment of real self-government (which would at last serve the interests of the Uyghurs—and not those exclusively of Peking and the Han).
23 See Michael Hechter, Internal Colonialism: The Celtic (...)
24 Interviews, 1999-2002. See for example, East Turkistan (...)
14 The Uyghur elite, more numerous and driven to compete with the Han, have increasing difficulty in fitting into the system25. It is true that the Chinese regime does attempt to co-opt a proportion of the Uyghurs into the administration but, even though noteworthy efforts have been made since the 1950s, it seems that over these last decades they have not been enough to integrate all the new Uyghur elite inside the system. In the 1950s, because of the small number of Uyghurs who had been educated, it was relatively easy for them to find posts on a level with their expectations. Over the past twenty years, with the end of the policy of the “iron rice bowl” (tiefanwan) and the arrival of greater numbers of well-qualified Uyghurs and, in particular, Han in the job market, the integration of some elite Uyghurs has become more problematical. Thus, many young Uyghurs of working-class or middle-class origins reproach the Chinese regime for not providing them with job opportunities commensurate with their training and, instead, for favouring the appointment of Han to management posts26.
25 Interviews, Xinjiang, 1999-2002.
26 Ibid.
15 The small amount of data relating to the ethnic origins of some of the Xinjiang elite appears to support such contentions. For example, in 1990, the national minorities provided only 28.8% of the total number of managers and administrators in Xinjiang27. This state of affairs is also observable within the political system: officials drawn from the national minorities are still under-represented in the Xinjiang Communist Party. They accounted for only 37.3% of its members in 199728. Moreover, bearing in mind that their loyalty towards Peking is considered suspect, they are often held down in posts with little power or posts where they can easily be controlled. Admittedly, the Presidents of the People’s Government of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, of each Autonomous Prefecture and of each Autonomous Village are elected on the basis of the titular nationality of the autonomous administrative entity. However, as everywhere else in China, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is the controlling force behind political institutions. And the most important CCP posts in Xinjiang are held by Han loyal to Peking and not by members of national minorities. For example, it is revealing to note that, ever since 1949, the post of Secretary of the CCP in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region has been occupied in an almost systematic way by Han Chinese.
27 Cf note 22.
28 Colin Mackerras, “Xinjiang and the causes of (...)
16 In sum, while a proportion of the Uyghur elite is integrated, even very well integrated, and has been for several generations, a growing number of the new elite find increasing difficulty in fulfilling their expectations and feel resentful of being excluded, even colonised. Shifting this fault line, where the integration of Uyghur elites is concerned, acts as a kind of measuring instrument for Uyghur nationalism. If the indicator moves towards “fewer well-integrated elite”, the nationalist opposition is likely to show itself more structured and more vigorous. Today, the fact that poorly integrated elite Uyghurs are more numerous than before explains the rising discontent among young educated people and the strengthening of their political opposition. Yet, the fact that a proportion of them continues to be “well integrated” harms the structure of Uyghur nationalism by preventing for the present the large-scale recruitment of officials likely to organise mass movements.
Reassertion of identity and Islamic revival among the Uyghurs of Xinjiang
17 Ever since the dark days of the Cultural Revolution, the relative openness that has followed Deng Xiaoping’s rise to power has left the way open to a vast movement for revitalising local culture. The 1980s saw a return towards the traditions and the “imagined foundations” of Uyghur identity. This phenomenon in its many forms manifests itself, for example, in the proliferation of books and academic research into Uyghur history and culture. It has also taken the form, as among the Hui, of an Islamic revival29. While publications relating to Islam flourished, mosques were renovated and many new ones built. Similarly, religious education developed strongly: Koranic schools were opened, attached to mosques on the one hand or, on the other, as private schools—usually undeclared30. This Islamic revival, observed right across China, has nevertheless assumed a distinctive dimension among the Uyghurs. For them it is part of a logic of return (or perceived return) to practices formerly discouraged or repressed, but it is also at the margin part of a more militant logic using Islam as an instrument for distinguishing Uyghur values31 from the non-clerical and atheistic values promoted by the Chinese authorities.
29 See Elizabeth Allès, Leïla Chérif-Chebbi & (...)
30 On religious education in China, see Elisabeth Allès, (...)
31 As Pierre Bourdieu has underlined in his analysis of the (...)
Table 1 : Demographic strength of the main Xinjiang nationalities
Source: Fenjin de sishi nian: 1949-1989. Xinjiang fenci (The advancing 40 years. 1949-1989. Xinjiang Volume), Zhongguo tongji chubanshe, Urumchi, 1989, p. 332; 2002 Xinjiang tongji nianjian (Xinjiang Statistical Yearbook), Pékin, Zhongguo tongji chubanshe, 2002, pp. 107, 109.
18 The revival of the Uyghurs’ Islamic culture and identity has also led, during the 1980s, to the formation of student associations aiming to promote the rights and culture of the Uyghurs: the Tengritakh Association (Tianshan), the Youth Association of East Turkistan, the Students’ Cultural and Scientific Association32… Some of these student associations, which reflect the growing strength of the democratic student movement in China and challenge “Great Han chauvinism”, seem quickly to have adopted a militant style. This is conveyed in a report reflecting CCP anxiety:
32 Artoush Kumul, “Le séparatisme ouïghour au XXe (...)
19 In the thirty years between 1949 and 1979, almost no demonstration was held by the Xinjiang minority students in Xinjiang, but after 1980, student demonstrations have broke out one after another. This is a new phenomena. Uyghur students from seven universities and colleges including Xinjiang University in Urumqi demonstrated on December 12th 1985. They were openly against the Central Government's decision. [. . .] Some of the students from Xinjiang University got together and organized this well planned and well organized political incident for which the Xinjiang University became the headquarter. Before and after that incident, some pro-separatism posters and flyers with contents such as: “Chinese out of Xinjiang”, “Independence for Xinjiang”, “Cut off the railroad from China proper to Xinjiang” were discovered in Urumqi and other districts. In June 1986, another demonstration was organized by a student association in Xinjiang University. [. . .] Using the “support for the minority education” as a cover, they attacked Central Communist Party's minority autonomy policy, damaged the good relationship among the nationalities. They used slogans such as “No big Chinese Nationalism”, “No Chinese population transfer to Xinjiang”, and created a very bad influence in the society.33
33 Zhang Yumo, “The Anti-Separatism Struggle and its (...)
20 Outside the campuses, the revival of the meshrep34 expresses the wish to revitalise Uyghur culture and identity. At the start of the 1990s, young Uyghurs of the region of Ghulja (Yining) launched a movement to re-invigorate these gatherings which have spread rapidly. However, the movement has also taken, according to the Chinese authorities, a “counter-revolutionary” turn. Fearing that it might become a focus for protest and “local nationalism” (difang minzuzhuyi), the regional government banned the meshrep in 1995; and the people who had launched the movement were imprisoned35.
34 The meshrep are gatherings at the local level, favouring (...)
35 Amnesty International, “People’s Republic of China: (...)
The rise and fall of two clandestine political movements of some stature
21 This aspiration to greater militancy36 has also taken the form of clandestine political movements37 that, in Xinjiang and in the Diaspora38, are founded on Uyghur nationalism tinged with Pan-Turkism39. Admittedly, these movements are not “mass movements”—and even less so in the present climate of repression. Uyghur militancy is driven mostly by a fringe group of young students and intellectuals, purged regularly by Chinese repression. Up until the 1990s, two successive clandestine groups in the tradition of the pre-1949 oppositional currents, both quite durable, dominated the underground political scene. Of these two nationalist Pan-Turkist parties, one, socialist and secular, relied on Soviet aid, and the other came from the anti-communist and Islamic tradition centred on the south of Xinjiang. Both could call upon a base of militancy that was relatively wide compared with present-day groupings (see below). At the same time they were counting on significant underground mobilisation to prepare for a general uprising in Xinjiang.
36 On the rise of militant nationalism among young Uyghurs, (...)
37 Although this study sets out in particular to look at the (...)
38 This study is limited to active movements in Xinjiang. On (...)
39 Cf note 6. On this point, over and above the debate about (...)
22 After 1949, the first big organised clandestine party was formed under the name of the Eastern Turkistan People’s Party (ETPP) (Sharki Turkistan Halk Partisi). Mainly drawing in Uyghurs but also Kazakhs, it was founded in secret, according to the Chinese authorities, in February 1968; but, according to the militants who have now taken refuge abroad, some of its cells had already been active for several years beforehand40. This was a separatist Pan-Turkist party with Marxist allegiances. Well-structured and hierarchic, it swiftly recruited former officials of the East Turkistan Republic as well as young people from Turkic-speaking minorities. According to the East Turkistan National Centre, this party numbered more than 60,000 members and 178 branches in Xinjiang41. These figures are hard to verify. However, the ETPP is probably the largest secret organisation ever created since the liberation of Xinjiang. The rise to power of this underground party seems to have been favoured mainly by the excesses of the Cultural Revolution and by the deterioration of Sino-Soviet relations. Indeed, the USSR did give help to the ETPP. As is confirmed by Chinese sources and the testimony of some of its former militants, the KGB developed its links with this party mostly through its agents active in Kazakhstan and seems to have provided it with logistical support on several occasions:
40 Interviews, Uyghur Diaspora 2002. According to Artoush (...)
41 Taipei Times, October 11th 1999.
23 The ETPP's Central Committee and subcommittee drafted articles such as “The Destiny of the Uyghurs”, “Eastern Turkestan People's Party's Constitution” and “Eastern Turkestan People's Party's General Principles”. [. . .] they all claim [. . .] “Seize the power with the help of the Soviet Union and establish an independent Eastern Turkestan Republic” [. . .]. Some of them even held the banner of Marxism and Leninism and proposed: “We want to establishing an independent country according to the Marxist principle of self-determination of different peoples”. [. . .] On a dozen occasions, the “ETPP”'s Ili Committee, Urumqi Branch, and Altay Bureau also sent their delegations to Soviet Union and Mongolia Republic to beg for arms and the use of radio stations for their riots and ask for military advisors. The Soviet Spy agency sent a group of fourteen people with spies carrying radio transmitters, weapons and funds for their activities. These groups arrived in Xinjiang and established communication with the “ETPP” nine times.42
42 Zhang Yumo, op. cit.
Table 2 : Distribution of wealth in the main sub-regional administrative units in Xinjiang

Source: 2002 Xinjiang tongji nianjian, op. cit., pp. 106, 110-115, 713, 715; 2002 Zhongguo tongji nianjian, op. cit., p. 51.
24 The ETPP focused its activity on mobilising Turkic-speaking populations and officials in Xinjiang with the aim of preparing a mass insurrection against Peking. At the same time, it took up guerrilla activities (sabotage, skirmishes with the police and the Chinese army…) and was behind various attempts at insurrection during the 1960s and the 1970s. Still quite active during the 1970s, it was gradually weakened by the arrest of its leaders, by the gradual falling away of Soviet support as the tension between Moscow and Peking relaxed, and then by the decline of the communist ideology. Nevertheless, while the ETPP was in decline, a new party of anti-Marxist opposition was developing in southern Xinjiang.
25 As the Soviet Union lost its appeal among anti-colonialist Muslims to the benefit of revolutionary Islam, and as the revival of Islamism was gathering pace in Xinjiang, the Islamic Pan-Turkic trend centred on the south of Xinjiang was given renewed vigour by new young leaders. It was re-organised around the East Turkistan Islamic Party (ETIP) (Sharki Turkistan Islam Partisi). This Pan-Turkic nationalist movement also aimed at renewing Islam among the Uyghurs and developed from networks of mosques in southern Xinjiang during the 1980s. According to official sources, it apparently generated offshoots in numerous cities in the Tarim Basin, indeed as far as Ghulja (Yining), Turfan and Urumqi43. Probably also inspired by the Afghans’ success against the Soviets, it really came into prominence in April 1990 at the time of the Baren insurrection (near Kashgar). The rising took the form of a jihad recalling that which led to the creation of the Turk Islamic Republic of East Turkistan (1933-1934)44.
43 Ibid.
44 Cf note 8.
26 The insurrection, which lasted for several days, caused several dozen deaths on the insurgents’ side and forced the Chinese army to deploy significant forces in the region to put down the rebellion. The Chinese authorities view the ETIP as part of the Jihadist current on the other side of the Pamirs; and they consider that it gave birth to more “radical” groupings such as the Party of Allah and the Islamic Movement of East Turkistan. Because of the little information available about this organisation, such links are difficult to check and to determine as true or false. However, the slogans proclaimed during the insurrection suggest that the ETIP at this time was more a renovated form of the Islamic Pan-Turkism historically established in the south of Xinjiang than a pure reincarnation of radical Islam:
27 He [Yusuf Zeydin, leader of the local branch of the ETIP] and his followers openly shouted: “Down with the socialism!”, “In the past Marxism suppressed religion, and now it is religion's turn to suppress Marxism”, “Unite all the Turk peoples, long live the great Eastern Turkistan!”, “Take Barin, establish Eastern Turkistan”.45
45 Ibid.
28 The subsequent repression prevented the party from being reconstituted on such wide foundations, despite attempts at this of some of its members in the early 1990s.
The 1990s: the turn towards repression
29 Whereas the 1980s are perceived by many Uyghurs as a period of reduced tension, even of an improvement in the relations between Uyghur society and the Chinese state, the 1990s saw the emergence of a repressive climate that engendered powerful frustrations and resentment. The 1990s increase in repression is generally linked with exacerbated Party anxieties on several levels.
30 Nationally, the conservative wing of the CCP considered that the worst was avoided after the Tiananmen events in 1989, whereas similar events took place in consequence on campuses in Xinjiang (see above). It considers that an authoritarian crackdown is essential to ensure the survival of the regime. At the same time, at the start of the 1990s, the Chinese regime feared that the accession to independence of the Central Asian Republics, and also the spread of radical Islam in the region (see below), would seriously destabilise Xinjiang if nothing was done. On the one hand, the accession to independence of other large Turkic populations of Central Asia was likely to legitimise and strengthen Uyghur separatism. On the other, the cultural links that bind the Uyghurs together with the peoples of the new Republics, and also with the Uyghur Diaspora in these countries46, allowed Peking to fear that solidarity would build up between the Uyghur separatists and these states (or certain organisations present on their soil). Firstly, some of them (Kazakhstan and Kirghizstan in particular) have effectively offered asylum to the new refugees, and even recognised organisations of the local Diaspora defending the independence of East Turkistan. Peking then applied itself to cutting off the militants active in Xinjiang from these potential supports outside. By playing on the prospects for settling frontier disputes and for economic co-operation, and by promoting co-operation in the struggle against separatism and Islamism in Central Asia through the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (SCO)47, China persuaded the Central Asian republics to ban the Uyghur organisations present on their territories, and even today to extradite some militants who have recently taken refuge there48.
46 The main part of the Uyghur Diaspora has sought refuge in (...)
47 The new name for the former Shanghai Group created in (...)
48 Thus, for example, the government of Kazakhstan, which (...)
31 On the domestic front, the Chinese regime confronted by the rise of Uyghur nationalism and by Islamic anti-governmental subversion has progressively tightened its control over society and the spaces for expressing identity and religion49 to prevent the start of dynamics that might have made the situation uncontrollable. At the same time as relations between the Chinese state and Uyghur society were becoming strained and disturbances, sometimes violent, were on the rise (the Baren insurrection in 1990, the disturbances of the summer and autumn of 1993 over the whole province, and the riots of July 7th 1995 in Khotan), the Chinese regime’s grip was progressively tightened.
49 Control over illegal religious activities was tightened (...)
Table 3 : National minorities’ share in Xinjiang’s total school population in 2000
Source: 2002 Xinjiang tongji nianjian, op. cit., pp. 612-613.
32 The turning point really came in 1996-1997, following the launch in April 1996 of the great national campaign against crime “Strike hard”. This campaign began shortly after a special meeting in March 1996 on maintaining stability in Xinjiang, and so there it assumed a special dimension, being targeted at separatism and illegal religious activities. The Permanent Committee of the Politburo of the CCP then issued an exhaustive list of strict directives aimed at tightening control over Xinjiang and eradicating potentially subversive activities50. As part of the same campaign, a succession of strong-arm police operations was mounted (the special 100-day crackdown from January to March 1999, the “General Campaign against Terrorism” from April to June 1999, the new campaign “Strike hard” from April 2001 onwards, the drive against separatism in October 2001…). This intense campaign of repression led to thousands of arrests and also to constant human rights violations and the improper use of the death penalty51. By fencing off, even closing down, the last spaces for the expression of identity or religion52, these restrictions put relations between Uyghur society and the Chinese regime under considerable strain. They gave the impression that the real target of the Chinese regime’s attacks was not so much separatism or even Islamism but Uyghur identity itself53.
50 This list, commonly called Secret Document No. 7, (...)
51 In Xinjiang, the everyday use of torture, ill-treatment (...)
52 Many books suspected of spreading “unhealthy” ideas (...)
53 See, for example, ETIC, “Hitay Hokumiti Sherqiy (...)
More disturbances and more radicalisation during the 1990s
33 During the same period, the introduction of a market economy combined with competition from ever-increasing numbers of Han placed the social climate under strain. Local politicians, in thrall to Peking, are unable to challenge policies imposed from the centre and often very strongly disliked (nuclear tests on the Lop Nor site, the restriction of religious freedoms, the enforcement of birth control while colonists are flooding in…); this fact has provoked numerous protest movements. Faced with a strained social and political climate, the local authorities (who cannot challenge the policies dictated by Peking) have often reacted with brutality. They have sometimes helped to give an insurrectional twist to protest movements that, originally, were merely directed against unpopular measures54. While the disturbances became more frequent55 in response to excessive Chinese repression, throughout the 1990s new groupings appeared in Xinjiang and the Diaspora. In the Diaspora, most organisations began to federate around the rejection of violent action while lobbying for the Uyghurs’ basic rights to be protected56; by contrast, in Xinjiang, groups with a sometimes reduced life expectancy, but adopting more radical modes of action, appeared. They protected themselves by keeping their memberships small, or withdrew from China (to Central Asia, Afghanistan or Turkey).
54 For example, the events at Khotan in July 1995 are (...)
55 On the disturbances that have rocked Xinjiang over the (...)
56 A score of Uyghur organisations have taken a step towards (...)
34 They carried out numerous guerrilla operations (sabotage57, arson, attacks on police barracks or military bases), and even graduated to acts of terrorism (assassinations of Han officials or Uyghur collaborators, and bomb attacks). The increasing frequency of acts of violence and terrorism in Xinjiang during the 1990s does not mean that all the Uyghur political movements support these modes of action. But, just recently, the Chinese authorities have generally harped on about the frequency of acts of violence to give the Uyghur opposition the image of a primarily terrorist force.
57 Chinese military infrastructure, the railway lines that (...)
35 Only a short while ago, the Chinese government was opting to hush up the news of these disturbances. However, following the events of September 11th 2001, it decided to put out information about the more violent acts and the terrorist attacks carried out during this period. It attributed some of them to armed groups who, to date, seem mostly to have disappeared or become dormant58. The Shock Brigade of the Islamic Reformist Party are held responsible for the attack that, on the Chinese New Year in February 1992, killed three people in a bus at Urumqi59. The East Turkistan Democratic Islamic Party is held to have carried out the bomb attacks in the south of Xinjiang that killed four victims between June and September 199360. The most memorable crime, that of February 25th 1997 in Urumqi (on the day of Deng Xiaoping’s funeral), was attributed to the East Turkistan National Unity Alliance. Four bombs had been planted on different bus routes. The resulting explosions killed nine and wounded 74. On the other hand, the Chinese regime did not mention in its report the crime committed during the annual meeting of the National People’s Congress on March 7th 1997: the bomb went off in a bus in Peking’s Xidan district (30 injured and two dead). Responsibility for this attack, the first to affect Peking since 1949, was claimed by the Organisation for East Turkistan Freedom (based in Turkey), but the Chinese government denied that any Uyghurs were involved in this attack.
58 For an exhaustive list of the violent acts attributed by (...)
59 Ibid.
60 Ibid.
The spread of radical Islam in Xinjiang
36 At the same time, connections have apparently been made between some Uyghur militants and Islamic movements. This phenomenon seems to be linked to several factors. On the one hand, the socio-political model promoted by these movements may have seemed a preferable alternative to the Chinese model perceived as colonial and culturally invasive. The desire to establish a political and social order that would put Uyghur Muslims at the centre of the system is very strong. Some Uyghur militants were probably also influenced by the hope that by imposing a strict Islamic framework they might at the same time find a solution to the present social problems. On the other hand, bearing in mind the cessation of support (active or passive) from the USSR and later of the Central Asian republics and taking account also of the indifference of the West61, the vital necessity of finding foreign support over which Chinese diplomacy had no hold also played an important role. Some Uyghur movements saw in the Islamic card a means of playing on the solidarity existing between Muslims within the Umma to attempt to win political support, fallback bases, even training facilities and funds to further the struggle against Chinese power in Xinjiang.
61 For many Uyghur militants, the absence of support from (...)
37 The first links seem to have been made during the 1980s. During this period, many foreigners (traders, preachers 62…) profited from the relative relaxation of Chinese control to proselytise their causes in China itself63. At the same time, with the opening of frontiers and the loosening of restrictions governing the Mecca pilgrimage, Uyghurs travelling abroad came into contact with proselytising movements working in Pakistan, Central Asia or in some Arab countries. Links were created in these cases too. At the same time also, as the restrictions on religious education in Xinjiang were being strengthened, many young Uyghurs went abroad. Through connections established during the 1980s or through family links on the spot, these young people—and also Uyghurs in the Diaspora—took religious courses in the Koranic schools sometimes attached to Islamist movements.
62 Coming mainly from Pakistan.
63 Bearing in mind the friendly relations that China and (...)
38 Thus, in Kazakhstan it seems that some Uyghurs joined the Islamic Renaissance Party64. In Uzbekistan and in Kirghizstan some of them joined the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) or else Hizb-ut Tahrir (HT)65. The other favoured place for recruitment was Pakistan. Chinese researchers suggest that about ten thousand Uyghurs went to Pakistan to receive a religious education66. This figure is hard to verify. Nevertheless, some of them did indeed follow programmes in fundamentalist Koranic schools in Pakistan, and were even in contact with various local Islamist movements (Jamaat-e Islami67, Jamaat al-Tabligh 68…). Through these connections, some Uyghurs took part in military operations. It seems that the Hizb ul-Mujahidin69 and the Salafist Jihadist70 movement Lashkar-e Taiba in particular71 enrolled a handful of Uyghurs in the Kashmir conflict72. However, most of the Uyghurs involved in the Jihad were in Afghanistan (mainly in the ranks of the Hizb-e Islami, the Taliban and later in the ranks of the IMU). Quoting official Russian sources and Chinese experts, the Chinese press has published figures ranging from over 200 Uyghurs in the “bin Laden camps” to more than a thousand having received some military training in Afghanistan73. Again, the figures are difficult to check. However, after the fall of the Taliban, the new Afghan government claims it has only a score of Chinese prisoners (who it has promised to hand over to the Chinese authorities). So one may presume that the Uyghurs amount only to a negligible proportion of the foreign supporters fighting alongside local radical movements.
64 Stéphane Dudoignon, “Islam d’Europe? Islam d’Asie? (...)
65 The HT is a neo-fundamentalist organization. Unlike the (...)
66 International Herald Tribune, October 15th 2001. (...)
67 In December 1995, about a hundred Uyghurs, mostly (...)
68 In 1997, this neo-fundamendalist organisation declared (...)
69 This guerrilla movement active in Kashmir is linked to (...)
70 Influenced by Salafism, these movements “demand a (...)
71 On these organisations, see Mariam Abou Zahab & (...)
72 According to Indian officials, three Uyghurs were (...)
73 “Jiangdu yu qian ren ladan ying shouxun” (More than a (...)
The Islamist faction in Xinjiang: a marginal threat but useful to the Chinese regime
39 During the 1990s, some of these young Uyghurs formed in their turn a small number of Islamist (or Islamic nationalist) groups which, according to Peking, have links with Salafist Jihadist networks based in the region. Because we have little reliable information about these ultra-clandestine organisations, it is very difficult to be specific about their ideology. For the most part, they begin with a nucleus of Uyghurs who have often received Islamic training abroad and are sometimes trained in combat and the use of explosives; around them are grouped the militants they themselves have recruited locally. However, the fact that they do not recruit from the Hui and that their discourse lays greater emphasis on liberating East Turkistan than on creating an Islamic state (or on returning to a purified form of Islam) suggests that their agenda is still mainly nationalist74.
74 Interviews, 2002.
40 Without having carried out a massive recruitment, these groups have concentrated on enrolling young people from the urban working class, mainly from southern Xinjiang. Admittedly, the substratum of urban youth, disconnected with Islam in its traditional Sufi form75, provides a reservoir of people that could feed the development of these groups. However, although one may recently observe the growing power of the neo-fundamentalist Hizb ut-Tahrir group76, the Islamist groups in Xinjiang have lost much of their membership and have been officially dismantled by the Chinese police. In reality, Chinese security focused its attention firstly on the East Turkistan Islamic Party of Allah (whose name recalls Hezbollah). Founded in 1993 according to some sources and in 1997 according to others77, the membership of this organisation campaigning for the creation of an Islamic state numbered from one hundred to fifteen hundred. According to the Chinese authorities, its members attacked individuals associated with the Chinese government. A wave of arrests at the end of the 1990s seems to have uncovered preparations for bombing attacks. In the end, according to the Chinese press, the Party of Allah was dismantled a few years ago.
75 The Uyghurs continue to practice a form of Islam that is (...)
76 The present rise to power of the HT in Xinjiang probably (...)
77 Zhongguo xinwenshe, July 7th 2000; South China Morning (...)
Table 4 : Differences in qualifications between Han and non-Han labour in Xinjiang in 1990
Source: Compilation based on data from the fourth census carried out in 1990 (Emily Hannum & Yu Xie, op. cit., p. 329).
41 Yet, after the events of September 11th 2001, the marginal existence of this kind of group was used by the Chinese regime to attempt to include the wholesale repression of the Uyghur opposition within the international dynamic of the struggle against Islamist terrorist networks78. While the Chinese Foreign Affairs Minister declared in November 2001 at the UN that “the terrorist forces of East Turkistan are trained, equipped and financed by international terrorist organisations”, in January 2002 the State Council published an ambiguous report laying stress on the supposed links between al-Qaeda and the Uyghur opposition grouped under the falsely unifying label of Dongtu79. In fact, there is no structure that controls all the Uyghur movements in Xinjiang and abroad; and the vast majority of them have no connection, either ideological or organisational, with radical Islam. Yet, by stressing the supposed links of the Party of Allah and the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM) with al-Qaeda, this report tends to lump together disparate elements of this kind. According to the thesis proposed by the State Council, members of these groups received training in Afghanistan. The leaders of the ETIM (a group that until then was almost unknown) are alleged to have met bin Laden at the start of 1999 and in February 2001; and he is alleged to have agreed to provide them with “fabulous sums”80. It is possible that these movements, and particularly the ETIM, might have had contacts with the bin Laden network and more probably with the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan81. But the Chinese declarations that attempt to show particularly close relationships fly in the face of bin Laden’s silence on East Turkistan.
78 See “Uygurs ‘part of world problem’”, South China (...)
79 Dongtu corresponds to the abbreviated form in Chinese of (...)
80 See China Daily, op. cit. The report published by the (...)
81 The fact that these organisations have very similar (...)
42 For his part, the leader of the ETIM, Hasan Mahsum, assured Radio Free Asia on January 22nd 2002 that his ultimate aim was the liberation of Xinjiang; and he denied any organic link with al-Qaeda. Even so, the Chinese lobbying did bear fruit. It enabled China to persuade the US government, at the end of August 2002, and then the UN Security Council to include on the list of groupings linked to al-Qaeda the East Turkistan Islamic Movement; it was given an extended description under a triple name: the East Turkistan Islamic Movement, the East Turkistan Islamic Party of Allah and the East Turkistan Islamic Party82.
82 In fact, the American decision probably had less to do (...)
The Chinese regime and the Uyghur dilemma
43 The consequences of the policies pursued by the Chinese regime reveal the political impasse it has run into by attacking the expressions of Uyghur malaise without attacking its real causes. Mao Zedong, going back on his promises, quickly opted for repression to put an end to demands for self-government, which had been made as early as the 1950s. The Chinese regime then outlawed any kind of protest against the policies imposed on Xinjiang; it also closed up most of the spaces in which the culture and the religious convictions of the Uyghurs could be expressed. In this way it fed frustrations that were also exacerbated by colonisation and the socio-economic stratification that it led to. When, to reduce tension, the regime partially re-opened these spaces, the re-opening simply allowed the power of Uyghur nationalism to grow. And since Peking closed the spaces and reverted to repression, all hopes of self-government, even of dialogue with the Chinese authorities, have flown out of the window. Now that relations have completely broken down, acts of violence have replaced peaceful demonstrations as the expression of the Uyghur malaise. Isolated as they have been by skilful Chinese diplomacy, what remains of the Uyghur opposition in Xinjiang is now open to all kinds of extremism.
Notes
1 This study is based mainly on data gathered by the author since the end of the 1990s in Xinjiang and within the Uyghur Diaspora.
2 Sharki Turkistan in Uyghur.
3 Historically, these communities shared the various ecological niches in the area. The oases to the south of the Tianshan mountains, that is to say the oases of the Tarim, Turfan and Kumul (Hami) Basins are traditionally populated by sedentary Uyghurs. The Tianshan chain and the steppes to the north are home to the Kazakh and Kirghiz nomads. To these Turkic-speaking populations are added the nomadic Mongols to the north and east, a Tajik community in the Pamirs and a few Uzbek and Tatar traders in the large oases. Following the conquest of the region by the Qing, Han, Manchurian population demobilised or sent there to ensure control of the north of the province, and Chinese Muslims (Hui) came to settle.
4 These Turkic-speaking populations have in common to be Sunni muslims of the Hanafi rite and to practise an Islam influenced by Sufism. Only the Tajiks of the Chinese Pamirs depart from this rule. They are Iranian-speaking, and are part of the Ismaelian branch of Shiism.
5 Until the twentieth century, these populations, fragmented by differences of identity and by political and religious rivalries between oases, referred to their geographic origin (their oasis of origin) to identify themselves. The term Uyghur refers to the Turkic people who, in the Middle Ages, developed a brilliant civilisation in the east of Xinjiang. This ethnonym, having disappeared since Islamisation, was revived by Russian ethnologists; it was brought back into service during the 1930s by Soviet advisors of Sheng Shicai to designate the Turkic-speaking sedentary Muslim communities speaking the Turki dialect of the Xinjiang oases. See Dru Gladney, “The Ethnogenesis of the Uighur”, Central Asian Survey, Vol. 9, No. 1, 1990, pp. 1-28; Abdurahman Abdullah, Tashkentchilair (Those who have studied in Tashkent), Xinjiang Renmin chubanshe, 2002.
6 Pan-Turkism, which was partly confused with Jadidism in Central Asia, developed in the 1880s among the Tatars of Russia. This reform movement aimed to restore political influence to the Muslim Turkish peoples and to awaken their national consciousness by modernising them (educational reforms, theological reforms…) Though it cannot be on the scale of the Turkish world as a whole, Pan-Turkism, closely mingled with Uyghur nationalism, helps to unite the various Turkic-speaking populations of East Turkistan behind the same political project.
7 Masami Hamada, “La transmission du mouvement nationaliste au Turkestan oriental (Xinjiang)”, Central Asian Survey, Vol. 9, No. 1, 1990, pp. 29-48; Justin Rudelson , Oasis Identities: Uyghur Nationalism Along China’s Silk Road, New York, Columbia University Press, 1997, pp. 55-57.
8 Andrew D. Forbes, Warlords and Muslims in Chinese Central Asia, A Political History of Republican Xinjiang 1911-1949, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1986, pp. 63-121.
9 Linda Benson, The Ili Rebellion: The Moslem Challenge to Chinese Authority in Xinjiang, 1944-1949, New York, Armonk, Sharpe, 1990; David Wang, Under the Soviet Shadow: The Yining Incident; Ethnic Conflicts and International Rivalry in Xinjiang, 1944-1949, Hong Kong, Chinese University Press, 1999.
10 Barry Sautman, “Preferential Policies for Ethnic Minorities in China: the Case of Xinjiang”, Nationalism and Ethnic Minorities, Vol. 4, No. 1/2, spring/summer 1998, pp. 86-113.
11 This colonisation policy, for example, has just been openly encouraged anew by the Permanent Committee of the Politburo of the CCP on March 19th 1996: its confidential session was devoted to maintaining stability in Xinjiang (“Guanyu weihu Xinjiang wending de huiyi jiyao, zhongyang zhengzhiju weiyuanhui” An English version of this text has been published by Human Rights Watch).
12 James D. Seymour, “Xinjiang’s Production and Construction Corps and the Sinification of Eastern Turkestan”, Inner Asia, Vol. 2, No. 2, 2000, pp. 171-94; Nicolas Becquelin, “Chinese hold on Xinjiang: Strengths and Limits”, in François Godement ed., La Chine et son Occident. China and its Western Frontier, Les Cahiers de l’Asie, IFRI, Paris, 2002, pp. 62-66; Xinjiang shengchan jianshe bingtuan tongji nianjian, (Statistical Yearbook of the Production and Construction Corps in Xinjiang), Peking, Zhongguo tongji chubanshe, 1999.
13 It is hard to calculate the real number of Han living in Xinjiang because the Chinese authorities, in their statistics, only declare communities under the jurisdiction of regional authorities and not those under the jurisdiction of the central authorities.
14 By Islamism, we shall understand any movement led by intellectuals benefiting from a modern education whose aim is “to build, starting with the power of the state, a global political system which would manage all aspects of the society and the economy, founding its authority only on Islam and rejecting any political pluralism”, (Olivier Roy, Généalogie de l’islamisme, Hachette, Paris, 2002, p. 10).
15 Bearing in mind the structural deficit of the autonomous region’s finances (about 50% of the regional budget at the end of the 1990s), Xinjiang is mainly dependant on funding from central government (see Nicolas Becquelin, “Xinjiang in the nineties”, China Journal, No. 44, July 2000, pp. 71-74).
16 In January 2000, Peking launched the campaign it called “Opening up the Great West” (Xibu dakaifa) in order to reduce the development gap between the East and the West of China. It aims in particular to encourage investment in the whole area made up of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, the Autonomous Regions of Tibet, of Ningxia, of Guangxi, of Inner Mongolia, the provinces of Qinghai, Gansu, Shaanxi, Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou and the municipality of Chongqing. Although the effectiveness of the proposed measures is doubtful, the Xinjiang authorities refer frequently to them to assure the autochthonous populations that they have not been abandoned and that all measures are being taken to improve their living conditions. On the campaign and what is at stake, see David S. G. Goodman, “The politics of the West: equality, nation-building and colonisation”, in La Chine et son Occident. China and its Western Frontier, IFRI, Les Cahiers d’Asie, Paris, 2001, pp. 23-55.
17 2002 Zhongguo tongji nianjian (Statistical Yearbook of China), Peking, Zhongguo tongji chubanshe, 2002, p. 51.
18 The main pioneer areas were opened up along the Hami-Turfan-Urumqi-Changji-Shihezi line, and along a line pushing out westwards (Yanji-Korla-Luntai-Aksu...). Extending the transport infrastructures mainly favoured colonisation by making zones that were formerly remote more accessible to the colonists. In the 1950s, only Kumul (Hami) was linked to the rest of the Chinese railway network. Urumqi was linked up in 1960. The Turfan-Korla section was completed in 1984, connecting Urumqi to the Kazakh frontier was achieved in the early 1990s and the Korla-Aksu-Kashgar section in 1999. The cross-desert road linking Khotan to Korla was finished in 1995. Thus, since the north of the Tarim Basin was given its rail link to the Chinese network and since Khotan was linked by road to the north of the Tarim Basin, the historical centres of Uyghur population, once isolated, have been receiving a steady influx of colonists.
19 The threshold set by the international organisations is about a dollar per day (that is, about 3,000 yuan per year).
20 In Xinjiang, bearing in mind the omnipresence of putonghua in the administration and the economy, it is essential to master it in order to rise to posts of responsibility. Young Uyghur pupils have a choice between attending “Uyghur classes” where teaching is conducted mainly in Uyghur and “Chinese classes” where teaching is conducted in Mandarin (Chinese). The Uyghur elite (often mastering Mandarin by themselves) frequently send their children to the Chinese classes to ensure for them better chances of professional success. However, bearing in mind the risks of losing one’s own culture that this choice incurs for some people, bearing in mind the fairly strict compartmentalisation of Han and Uyghur housing, and also because in the remote rural Uyghur areas these Chinese classes are not available, most Uyghur families send their children to the “Uyghur classes” near where they live. Thus, many young people, despite the existence of Chinese lessons and classes taught in Chinese in the “Uyghur classes”, do not master Chinese by the time they leave.
21 The continuous influx of the Han produces on the labour market significant tensions that are aggravated by the fact that the economy is dominated by the Han. Since Han people prefer to be surrounded by Han people, the jobs that they create go to them and not to the Uyghurs. This “preferential job recruitment” is mainly observable in the private sector where there is no encouragement for employers to recruit from the national minorities. Many Uyghurs speak resentfully of this kind of discrimination in the labour market and complain that, with equal or superior skills, they cannot compete with the Han or the Hui (Interviews, Xinjiang, 1999-2002).
22 Emily Hannum and Yu Xie, “Ethnic stratification in Northwest China: occupational differences between Han Chinese and national minorities in Xinjiang, 1982-1990”, Demography, Vol. 35, No. 3, 1998, p. 328.
23 See Michael Hechter, Internal Colonialism: The Celtic Fringe in British National Development, 1536-1966, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1975. Whether Xinjiang fulfils the half-dozen criteria that qualify a territory as an interior colony is the subject of much debate. However, in our opinion, whether the peripheral community considers itself to be colonised is more important than validating these criteria, when it comes to understanding how these situations of stratification (perceived or real) can lead to ethnic nationalism.
24 Interviews, 1999-2002. See for example, East Turkistan Information Center (ETIC), “Sherqiy Turkistanda Bashbalasi Hitay Koçmenliri” (The Chinese Migrants in East Turkistan), www.uygur.org.
25 Interviews, Xinjiang, 1999-2002.
26 Ibid.
27 Cf note 22.
28 Colin Mackerras, “Xinjiang and the causes of separatism”, Central Asian Survey, Vol. 20, No. 3, 2001, p. 290.
29 See Elizabeth Allès, Leïla Chérif-Chebbi & Constance-Hélène Halfon, “L’islam chinois, unité et fragmentation”, Archives de sciences sociales des religions, n° 115, 2001, pp. 15-47.
30 On religious education in China, see Elisabeth Allès, “Muslim Religious Education in China”, China Perspectives, No. 45, January-February 2003, pp. 21-29.
31 As Pierre Bourdieu has underlined in his analysis of the relationship between the habitus and class conflicts, the habitus is governed by relational influences. Above all, it is public, in that it is meant to carry meaning in other people’s eyes. In this regard, the study of the evolution of the Uyghur habitus gives us extensive information on the nature of the relations between the Uyghurs and the Chinese centre.
32 Artoush Kumul, “Le séparatisme ouïghour au XXe siècle”, CEMOTI, n° 25, January-June 1998, p. 88.
33 Zhang Yumo, “The Anti-Separatism Struggle and its Historical Lessons since the Liberation of Xinjiang” in Yang Faren et al., Fanyisilanzhuyi, fantujuezhuyi yanjiu (Study on Pan-Islamism and Pan-Turkism), 1994, a document translated and published in English on the web site of the Uyghur American Association, www.uyghuramerican.org/researchanalysis/trans.html.
34 The meshrep are gatherings at the local level, favouring the communication of traditional Uyghur culture. This movement for revitalising traditional culture was intended also to stem the loss of “moral values” among young Uyghurs (the weakening of intergenerational solidarity, criminal behaviour, consumption of drugs and alcohol . . .).
35 Amnesty International, “People’s Republic of China: Gross Violations of Human Rights in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region”, April 1st 1999, pp. 18-19.
36 On the rise of militant nationalism among young Uyghurs, see also the study by Joanne Smith, “Four Generations of Uyghurs: the Shift towards Ethno-political Ideologies among Xinjiang’s Youth”, Inner Asia, Vol. 2, No. 2, 2000, pp. 195-224.
37 Although this study sets out in particular to look at the political manifestations of the “Uyghur malaise” it is important to note that this malaise also feeds a “sub-political resistance” anchored mainly in the daily life of the Uyghurs. On this question, see Gardner Bovington, “The Not-So-Silent Majority: Uyghur Resistance to Han Rule in Xinjiang”, Modern China, Vol. 28, No. 1, January 2002, pp. 39-78.
38 This study is limited to active movements in Xinjiang. On political groupings in the Diaspora, see Frédérique-Jeanne Besson, “Les Ouïghours de la diaspora”, Cahiers d’études sur la Méditerranée orientale et le monde turco-iranien (CEMOTI), n° 25, July-December 1998, pp. 161-192.
39 Cf note 6. On this point, over and above the debate about emancipation and the means to achieve it, the accent is placed either on the struggle for the recognition of the sovereign rights of the Uyghur nation, or else on the need to defend the interests of the various Turkic-speaking populations within the context of a Pan-Turkic project on the scale of Xinjiang: both views are aired in the debate among the different nationalist movements over how the region should be named: Uyghuristan in the former view, East Turkistan for the latter. See, on the question, ETIC, “Sherqiy Turkistanmu? Uyghuristanmu?” (East Turkistan? Uyghuristan?).
40 Interviews, Uyghur Diaspora 2002. According to Artoush Kumul, it was already active in the late 1950s (see Artoush Kumul, op. cit., p. 85).
41 Taipei Times, October 11th 1999.
42 Zhang Yumo, op. cit.
43 Ibid.
44 Cf note 8.
45 Ibid.
46 The main part of the Uyghur Diaspora has sought refuge in Central Asia where it numbers according to the 1989 census in Kazakhstan 180,000 people (500,000 according to Uyghur associations), 40,000 people in Kirghizstan (250,000 according to the associations), 5,000 in Turkmenistan (20,000 for the associations) and a total that is hard to calculate in Uzbekistan (many Uyghurs having registered themselves as Uzbeks). The rest of the Diaspora is settled in Turkey (about 10,000 people) and, in smaller numbers, in Germany, Australia, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, Canada, the US, India and Pakistan.
47 The new name for the former Shanghai Group created in 1996, the SCO includes Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kirghizstan, Tadjikistan and Uzbekistan.
48 Thus, for example, the government of Kazakhstan, which had officially recognised organisations seeking independence that were operating within its territory (The United National Revolutionary Front of East Turkistan, the Organisation for the Liberation of Uyghuristan and the Union of Uyghur Peoples) ended up by banning them in 1995 under pressure from the Chinese government. On the repression of the Uyghur militants in Central Asia, see ETIC, “Sherqiy Turkistanning 2002-yili Yanwardin–Mayghiçe Bolghan Arliqtiki Insan Heqliri Weziyiti Heqqide Teyarlanghan Mehsus Dokilat” (Special report on the state of human rights in East Turkistan over the period January-May 2002), May 1st 2002, pp. 7-8.
49 Control over illegal religious activities was tightened by means of regulations such as Temporary Regulations on Controlling Religious Meetings in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in 1988 and Regulations on Religious Activities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in 1995.
50 This list, commonly called Secret Document No. 7, stresses, for example, the need to purge the Communist Party and the local administration of their least reliable elements, to strengthen propaganda against separatism, to tighten control over the people of Xinjiang, to encourage the influx of officials and Han colonists within the Xinjiang Construction and Production Corps in order to control the region, to control strictly the building of new mosques, to give leading positions in the mosques and religious organisations to people who love their “mother country”, to register all people who have been trained in religious schools without permission and to keep them under surveillance, to take “strong measures to prevent religion from interfering in social and political affairs…” See “Guanyu weihu Xinjiang wending de huiyi jiyao, zhongyang zhengzhiju weiyuanhui”, op. cit.
51 In Xinjiang, the everyday use of torture, ill-treatment and executions following summary trials contrast with the relative mildness of the repressive apparatus in the interior of China itself. According to a report by Amnesty International, between April 1997 and 1999, a minimum of 190 executions were recorded (Amnesty International, “People’s Republic of China”: Gross Violations of Human Rights in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region”, op. cit.). For Marie Holzman, the proportion of Uyghurs among Chinese citizens condemned to death is ten times higher than their share of the Chinese population (a personal communication). This repressive downturn was itself exacerbated by the serious events that took place in February 1997. On February 5th and 6th that year, violent rioting broke out in Ghulja (Yining). It was brutally put down. The police crackdown and the widespread arrests that followed instilled a climate of terror that left its mark on people’s minds. Despite an official figure of nine killed and a hundred wounded, the probable death toll among the rioters reached several dozen.
52 Many books suspected of spreading “unhealthy” ideas are thus removed from the shelves and even publicly burned on occasion (the best-known case is that of Turghun Almas’s books on the history of the Uyghurs). Uyghurs working in the administration as well as those who are students are strongly advised not to practise Islam on pain of disciplinary measures against them or even being thrown out of their universities or losing their jobs. The closure of mosques or illegal religious schools are routinely mentioned in the press, and the imams and preachers involved suffer heavy penalties. In March 2001, the Chinese regime launched a much disliked campaign called “the patriotic re-education of imams”. The imams are thus obliged to attend patriotic education classes (at the risk of losing their authorization to practise) while numerous restrictions have been imposed on religious education in the region (for example, in the rest of China, the imams are fairly free to give religious instruction to an indefinite number of students in schools attached to the mosques; but in Xinjiang, they may not give instruction to more than one or two pupils each).
53 See, for example, ETIC, “Hitay Hokumiti Sherqiy Turkistanda Yurguziwatqan Bir – Birige Zir Diniy Siyasetliri Arqiliq Ozining Asasi Qanunini Ayaq – Asti Qilmaqta” (The Chinese government violates its own constitution in the contradictory religious campaigns that it wages in East Turkistan).
54 For example, the events at Khotan in July 1995 are connected to the successive arrests of several charismatic imams. The uprising in Ghulja in February 1997 seems to have followed several unpopular measures among which was the banning of the meshrep and the arrest of a prayer group during Ramadan.
55 On the disturbances that have rocked Xinjiang over the last two years, Michael Dillon, “Xinjiang: Ethnicity, Separatism, and Control in Chinese Central Asia”, Durham East Asian Papers, No. 1, 1995, pp. 17-31.
56 A score of Uyghur organisations have taken a step towards coordinating their activities by creating the East Turkistan National Congress (ETNC) and its permanent office in Munich in October 1999. The statutes and aims of the ETNC may be consulted on the web site: www.eastturkistan.com
57 Chinese military infrastructure, the railway lines that bring the Han colonists into Xinjiang and the pipelines that export local hydrocarbons to the rest of China are favoured targets for these acts of sabotage.
58 For an exhaustive list of the violent acts attributed by the Chinese regime to the separatists in Xinjiang, see “True nature of ‘East Turkestan’ forces”, China Daily, January 22nd 2002.
59 Ibid.
60 Ibid.
61 For many Uyghur militants, the absence of support from the West and particularly from the United States tends to drive some of them into the arms of the Islamists (Interviews, 1999-2002).
62 Coming mainly from Pakistan.
63 Bearing in mind the friendly relations that China and Pakistan strive to maintain, the subject is still taboo; but the comings and goings of Pakistani preachers following the opening of the Karakorum road to cross-border trade have seriously irritated the Chinese authorities. As a sign of protest, China closed its frontier with Pakistan between 1992 and 1994. A few months after it was reopened, China arrested nearly 450 Pakistanis who had committed “illegal actions” in Xinjiang. The Chinese diplomats refused to confirm that some of them had been arrested for religious or political proselytising but this silence seems to suggest this was the case (Nawai Waqt, June 4th 1996). Several Pakistani traders who regularly pass through Kashgar have indicated to me that they have stopped attending the mosque to “keep out of trouble with the Chinese authorities”.
64 Stéphane Dudoignon, “Islam d’Europe? Islam d’Asie? En Eurasie centrale (Russie, Caucase, Asie centrale” in L’Islam en Asie, du Caucase à la Chine, edited by Andrée Feillard, Paris, La Documentation française, p. 67.
65 The HT is a neo-fundamentalist organization. Unlike the Jihadist parties whose primary aim is to seize political power by force, this organization focuses its action on the re-Islamization of Muslim people before concentrating on taking power by force. Originating in Jordan, it has spread across the Muslim world and particularly in Uzbekistan where it has become, together with the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, the bête noire of President Karimov. See Ahmed Rashid, Asie centrale, champ de guerres. Cinq Républiques face à l’islam radical, Autrement Frontières, Paris, 2002, pp. 106-123. This organisation has been operating for a while in Xinjiang. A few Uyghurs recruited in Uzbekistan and in Kirghizstan went back to Xinjiang to form cells that have spread in the late 1990s (Interviews, 2002).
66 International Herald Tribune, October 15th 2001.
67 In December 1995, about a hundred Uyghurs, mostly financed by the Jamaat-e Islami, took a course at the Sayed Mawdudi Institute at Lahore or in other Koranic schools in Pakistan (The Herald, December 1995).
68 In 1997, this neo-fundamendalist organisation declared that it was carrying out “missionary activities” on the other side of the Chinese frontier (Asia Times, February 12th 1997).
69 This guerrilla movement active in Kashmir is linked to the Jamaat-e Islami and to the Afghan Hizb-e Islami.
70 Influenced by Salafism, these movements “demand a return to strict Islam, free of any local customs or cultures” and “call for Jihad to recover ‘occupied’ Muslim lands, and even to fight against Muslim regimes that they consider as traitors” (Mariam Abou Zahab & Olivier Roy, Réseaux islamiques. La connexion afghano-pakistanaise, collection CERI/Autrement, Paris, 2002, p. 5).
71 On these organisations, see Mariam Abou Zahab & Olivier Roy, op. cit.
72 According to Indian officials, three Uyghurs were captured during battles in Kashmir two years ago.
73 “Jiangdu yu qian ren ladan ying shouxun” (More than a thousand independence campaigners from Xinjiang were given training in bin Laden’s camps), Mingbao, November 3rd 2001.
74 Interviews, 2002.
75 The Uyghurs continue to practice a form of Islam that is still strongly influenced by Sufism and the cult of saints. Apart from those who have gone abroad or from some young urbans (who are often disconnected from Sufi networks), the people of Xinjiang are still generally resistant to the radical versions of Islam and often show themselves to be very critical of such practices.
76 The present rise to power of the HT in Xinjiang probably arises from its political methods, which are peaceful (which gives it a more “respectable” image) and ultra-secret (its militants are less exposed to Chinese repression than they would be by the violent acts of Jihadist groups.). It also accepts putting stress on the improvement of the individual and achieving well-being in the light of a purified form of Islam. Indeed, in addition to its political project of joining a great caliphate (and thus its aim of winning freedom from the Chinese “yoke”), the accent it puts on the individual religious dimension is considered by its adherents (often young urban dropouts) as the means of ending the social problems which affect Uyghur society (the collapse of social solidarity, criminality, drug-taking …)
77 Zhongguo xinwenshe, July 7th 2000; South China Morning Post, “Victory claimed against Muslims Rebels”, January 13th 2001.
78 See “Uygurs ‘part of world problem’”, South China Morning Post, November 16th 2001, “Bin Laden’s Network: A Chinese View”, People’s Daily, November 16th 2001; “Guowuyuan: Ladan chuci peixun xindu)” (State Council: bin Laden finances the training of Xinjiang’s independence activists)”, Mingpao, January 22nd 2002 , China Daily, January 22nd 2002 (op. cit.)
79 Dongtu corresponds to the abbreviated form in Chinese of East Turkistan.
80 See China Daily, op. cit. The report published by the State Council accuses the ETIM of having set up cells in Xinjiang for training people how to handle explosives and for having created significant caches of arms and bomb-making products.
81 The fact that these organisations have very similar names, added to the presence of Uyghurs among the IMU fighters taken prisoner in northern Afghanistan, support this idea.
82 In fact, the American decision probably had less to do with the struggle against international terrorism than with American anxieties about China’s exports of technologies considered to be “sensitive”. For many analysts, adding the ETIM to this notorious black list had the principal aim of satisfying China so as to induce Peking to stop its missile sales to potentially aggressive countries (at the same time, China has indeed drawn up new regulations governing its missile exports) (Xinhua, August 26th 2002).
Pour citer cet article
Référence électronique
Rémi Castets, « The Uyghurs in Xinjiang – The Malaise Grows », China perspectives, n°49, 2003, [En ligne], mis en ligne le 17 janvier 2007. URL : http://chinaperspectives.revues.org/document648.html. Consulté le 10 septembre 2007.
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