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)
Nor would I be surprised if reading a Bible in Saudi Arabia was a crime.
Which brings to mind an interesting post on this blog
"Oh DJ my friend, you will learn eventually that Communism and Islam are really one and the same...both founded by evil men, both brutish systems that kill anyone who dares to dissent, both systems through all means that force one to believe in its draconian codes, both murderous to their core.....both totalitarian systems...one wrapped in the veneer of arab religiosity and other wrapped in the veneer of power to the people...."
There was never anything "fair" about the "assimilation".
The "assimilated" group is throughout the period of "assimilation" rendered second class, not brought into commanding positions, not included in the best possibilities, economically or politically, until such time has passed that the fact that the Han had displaced (you call it "absorbed") the minority that the distinction was no longer obvious.
And you are wrong that this process has always blended ethnicities. Many of the current peoples of Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and Burma represent ethnic groups whose ancestors once resided in what is now southern China, until the constant attacks, militarily, and imperially after conquest, forced them to migrate south, in such large numbers that they in turn displaced the former dominant groups in those areas.
Just as today, the culture and identity of Tibet is being obliterated by what you call "assimilation". It is cultural genocide and nothing less. It has, and has never had anything to with the "security" of the Han. It's Han imperialism and it always has been.
This fight between the Chinese and jihadis reminds me of the old comment by Kissinger - it's too bad both sides can't lose.
However, while some groups did flee south to other countries in Southeast Asia, most were eventually assimilated. Again, not necessarily disagreeing that those minority groups were initially considered secondary citizens, but obviously they eventually became part of the Han ethnicity--which is why there are more than a billion people who consider themselves Han Chinese.
And don't put words in hands (similar to words in mouth)--where in the comment(s) do you read that the "process has always blended ethnicities?" Oh, it's not there. You figured that one on your own--using your own biases?
Tell me about it!
I hate to say it, but... damn, the rest of the civilized world could stand to take a cue from those Commie bastards every now and then.
The Japanese would seem to have a good chance.
The question then becomes, will they be able to survive the Chinese onslaught?
"And don't put words in hands (similar to words in mouth)--where in the comment(s) do you read that the "process has always blended ethnicities?" Oh, it's not there. You figured that one on your own--using your own biases?"
You are right, mea culpa, mea culpa. I guess where you used the term "generally", I would have used a less complete term of "sometimes", because when the main body of an ethnic group or culture gets forcefully depleted and scattered, the "assimilation" of its remnants, in their now diverse locales, appears less of a genocide than it actually is.
"Generally" what I object most to is that your language on this issue mirrors 100% the language of all Han leaders, whether they be former or current emperors. That language attempts to impose the image that what has "developed" (standards of living, standards of law and practice, for instance) would not and could not have been equaled in any locale of "China" in any other way.
That is the language used throughout every phase of every Chinese emperor's reign and it is the language used now in regard to the invasion of the Han into the lands of the Uighurs and the Tibetans. It is a lie that human progress and development would not and could have obtained to the diverse peoples in any other way.
It is the language of imperialism, not truth.
Misleading headline. He had explosives too.
Pan Islam Pan Turkism on the march. China has the right to get rid of its home grown terrorists.
According to the Chinese the “peaceful” Ugyurs have links to Al Quaeda too.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/en/doc/2003-12/16/content_290658.htm
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