Posted on 02/09/2007 3:43:02 PM PST by jonassen
BEIJING, Feb 9 (Reuters) - China has executed a Uighur activist in a far-northwestern city for attempting to "split the motherland" and possessing explosives, drawing condemnation from a human rights group which said the evidence was insufficient.
Ismail Semed, who was deported to China from Pakistan in 2003, had told the court a confession had been coerced, but he was executed nevertheless on Thursday in Urumqi, capital of the predominantly Muslim region of Xinjiang, Radio Free Asia on Friday quoted his widow, Buhejer, as saying.
"When the body was transferred to us at the cemetery I saw only one bullet hole in his heart," Buhejer told the U.S. government-funded radio.
The exile group, the World Uighur Congress, said the prosecution had presented no credible evidence for a conviction.
"His trial, like most Uighur political prisoners' trials, was not fair," it said in an emailed statement.
A spokeswoman for the Urumqi Intermediate People's Court said a group of people had been executed on Thursday but said she had no knowledge of specific cases. The Xinjiang regional government declined to comment.
Turkic-speaking Muslim Uighurs account for 8 million of the 19 million people in Xinjiang.
The radio said the charge of attempting to split the motherland stemmed from the allegation that Semed was a founding member of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, outlawed by Beijing as a terrorist group.
But Nicholas Bequelin, Hong Kong-based China researcher of Human Rights Watch, said: "The death penalty was widely disproportionate to the alleged crimes ... his trial did not meet minimum requirements of fairness and due process."
"We don't think there was sufficient evidence to condemn him," Bequelin added.
China has waged a harsh campaign in recent years against what it says are violent separatists and Islamic extremists struggling to set up an independent "East Turkestan" in Xinjiang, which shares a border with Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Russia and Mongolia.
Buhejer met her husband briefly on Monday shortly after being informed of the decision to execute him, RFA said.
"(It was) only for 10 minutes" that they were allowed to meet, she was quoted as saying.
He told her to "take care of our children and let them get a good education". The couple has a young son and daughter.
Semed had previously served two prison sentences for taking part in a violent uprising in 1990. He fled to Pakistan after a Chinese government crackdown in 1997.
Two other Uighurs who testified against Semed were also executed, RFA quoted unnamed sources in the region as saying.
In a reference to another case currently in court in Urumqi, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said on Thursday Canadian diplomats had no right to be present at the hearing of Hussayin Celil, a Uighur accused by China of terrorism who was awarded Canadian citizenship two years ago.
Celil, also known as Yu Shanjiang, fled China in the 1990s and travelled last year to Uzbekistan, where he was detained and then extradited to China on terrorism charges.
He was cited in court documents related to Semed as a co-conspirator, Bequelin told Reuters. China has not recognised Celil's Canadian citizenship, obtained in 2005. (Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard)
I'm serious--I take great comfort in the fact that the Chinese won't tolerate any fundy Islamic crap.
Your [acquaintances'] personal experience with the region and its people is much more credible than the idea that simply because people are nominal Muslims, they must be hunted down and killed.
People in Belfast say similar things about "The Protestants" but that doesn't mean that all Protestants are terrorists.
"Turkic-speaking Muslim Uighurs account for 8 million of the 19 million people in Xinjiang."
The ratio is less than that because the government is under-reporting the number of Han Chinese in the province.
In 1949 the Turkic-speaking Uighurs represented 60-80% of the population in Xinjiang, depending on locale.
The Marxist government's manner of development is to increase the number of Han Chinese in the province. Its the same slow (decades and centuries) ethnic cleansing by which the Han came to dominate central China in the first place. Ancient emperors or modern emperors, its all the same over the eons to "minorities" ruled by the Han.
Whether its the Uighurs in Xinjiang or the Tibetans, its all the same now just as it has always been.
China will not blink an eye at eliminating muslim trouble makers. If they cause too much problem they will outlaw the cult and execute them for just belonging. Good for China, let these idiots act like terrorists over there and they will be selling their organs on the open market.
Sort of how they outlaw Christian denominations as "cults" and execute Christians "for just belonging?"
Ismail Semed, who was deported to China from Pakistan in 2003
Maybe he had the kids in Pakistan.
We're all awaiting CAIR'S response to this.
It's such a rare occasion, normally it's the Nuke Jews and Christians Crowd that get all the action.
Have you really been here since 1999?
No, actually it was 1998, but I did a name change in 1999.
I agree... we could learn a few things from the Chinese...
My friends in Urumqi don't have any trouble.
China will probably be the only country that will survive the muslim onslaught.
I believe China's "One-Child" policy applies only to Han Chinese and not the national minorities.
I thought it was funny :)
Urumqi also the capital of the region--and (guessing) its biggest city. A lot of big cities have a lot of crime. Outside of the city, it might be more peaceful?
They are lucky.
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