Please Join Us
Uyghur Canadians
protest G20
summit:
Waqti hem orni: Shenbe (26 - Iyul) sa'et 10:30 da "Quesn's Park" subway
station da yighilip sa'et 11:00 da Quens' Park ning shimali teripidiki
belgilen'gen orungha
barimiz
The World Uyghur Congress (WUC) condemns
in strongest possible terms the 15-year
sentence handed down to prominent Uyghur
journalist Gheyret Niyaz by a court in
East Turkestan (also known as the
Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of
China) on July 23, 2010. After a one-day
trial, the court convicted and sentenced
Mr. Niyaz to 15 years in prison on
charges of “endangering state security”
for giving interviews to media about the
aspects of Uyghurs’ situation that he
perceived to be the root causes of the
July 2009 ethnic unrest in Urumchi (the
regional capital) and for peacefully
exercising his freedom of speech in
other ways with regard to problems faced
by the Uyghur people.
According to media reports, Uyghur
journalist and webmaster Gheyret Niyaz
was sentenced to 15 years in prison
today (July 23) for endangering state
security by speaking to foreign
journalists. Niyaz reportedly informed
government officials about plans for
demonstrations that had been posted on
websites prior to unrest that occurred
on July 5, 2009 in Urumchi, the regional
capital of East Turkestan, and later
criticized the government’s handling of
the unrest. The Uyghur American
Association (UAA) believes the harsh
sentence represents the Chinese
government’s policy of no tolerance for
any type of Uyghur dissent, as well as
the government’s campaign to tightly
control the flow of information and stem
public criticism of official policy.
Two prominent members of the exiled Turkic-speaking Uyghur community in Pakistan
, many of whom oppose Chinese rule in their homeland, are on the run from the authorities
following police raids on their homes.
Below an article published by Radio Free Asia :
Omer and Akbar Khan, who co-founded a charity to teach Pakistani Uyghurs their own
language in the northern city of Rawalpindi, said they had fled from police after
neighbors told them their close relatives had been detained for several hours.
Cyber hackers have targeted the Yahoo (NSDQ:YHOO) e-mail accounts of journalists
and activists who have previously written about or been outspoken about China with
a malicious attack this week, following Google (NSDQ:GOOG)'s announcement to
move its search office out of the mainland.
Specifically, several journalists in both China and Taiwan said that they were unable
to access their Yahoo accounts, in what appeared to be an orchestrated assault starting
March 25.
Yahoo e-mail service seemed to be restored Wednesday after a five-day outage.
Altogether, those targeted in the Yahoo e-mail attack included a U.S. law professor,
an analyst who had written about China's security and several print journalists
based in Beijing and Taipei, The New York Times reported.
The men were among 17 Uighurs held at the Guantanamo prison camp in Cuba
The transfer of two ethnic Uighurs from the US detention centre in Guantanamo Bay
to Switzerland has triggered an angry reaction from China.
The two men, who are brothers, were recently resettled in Switzerland after spending
eight years in the Guantanamo camp, the US justice department announced on Wednesday.
At least 20 Uighurs who fled China after deadly ethnic violence earlier this year
have been deported from Cambodia, a government official has said.
Khieu Sopheak, a Cambodian interior ministry spokesman, said the group had been
put on a plane, sent from China, that left Phnom Penh International Airport at about
9pm (14:00 GMT) on Saturday.
The June uprising in Iran and the July Uyghur uprising in Xinjiang, western China,
featured a number of striking similarities. In both cases, an unelected, undemocratic
government brutally suppressed demonstrators addressing legitimate grievances, killing
dozens of unarmed civilians in the process. Now, some months later, the cases are
coming to the same appalling conclusion: Tehran and Beijing are carrying out executions
of those accused of organizing the demonstrations.
BEIJING — Nine Uighurs have been executed for taking part in ethnic rioting that
left nearly 200 people dead in July, the first suspects put to death in the unrest,
Chinese state media reported Monday.
The nine were put to death recently after a final review of the verdicts by the
Supreme People's Court as required by law, the official China News Service said,
but gave no specific date or other details.
BEIJING — Four months after ethnic rioting in western China’s Xinjiang region killed
nearly 200 people, security officials there have started a fresh dragnet to track
down accused rioters and other so-called terrorist elements, a state-run regional
newspaper reported Tuesday.
Enforced Disappearances in the Wake of Xinjiang’s Protests
This 44-page report by Human Rights Watch documents the widespread campaign of unlawful
arrests carried out by Chinese security forces in the Uyghur areas of Urumchi in
the wake of July 5. The “enforced disappearances” of Uyghur men and teenagers in
Urumchi occurred as a result of large-scale sweep operations as well as targeted
raids. While Human Rights Watch was able to secretly document the cases of 43 "enforced
disappearances", the total number of unlawfully arrested Uyghurs is likely
much higher.
BEIJING — Residents in China's restive Xinjiang region remain isolated from
the outside world with long-lasting Internet and phone cuts that have prompted some
businesses to relocate, locals said Saturday.
Emails are still blocked nearly four months after deadly ethnic unrest erupted in
the regional capital Urumqi, as are text messages and international phone calls,
residents told AFP.
"Our business has been seriously affected, and we have had to set up an office
in Lanzhou (capital of neighbouring Gansu province)," said the head of an Urumqi-based
firm, who asked to remain anonymous.
BEIJING: Authorities in China's restive northwestern Xinjiang region on Sunday
approved a bill making it a criminal offence for people there to
discuss separatism on the Internet, state media reported.
The bill passed by Xinjiang's standing committee bans people in the region from
using the Internet in any way that undermines national unity, incites ethnic separatism
or harms social stability, the China News Service reported.
TAIPEI — Taiwan's pro-independence opposition said Friday it plans to show more
films about Tibet and Xinjiang to counter China's alleged boycott of the island's
number two city over a controversial biopic.
"We want to stress that Taiwan is a place of freedom of speech and freedom
of creation despite China's boycott," said Sky Chao, a spokesman for the
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
Shohret Tursun was one of some 40 people from Korgas who were detained around at
the time of the July riots in Urumqi, the regional capital. According to his father,
quoted by Radio Free Asia, he was transferred to Ili on 18 July and further on to
Korgas on 23 July.
BEIJING - China announced the first charges to be laid in connection with violent
unrest in July that shook China's northwest region of Xinjiang, home to Muslim
Uighurs.
Twenty-one people had been charged with murder, arson, robbery and damaging property
during ethnic riots that erupted in Urumqi, Xinjiang's capital, on July 5, Xinhua
news agency said.
China
August 2009 Ever since the violence between Muslim Uighurs and Han Chinese, a fear
of fanaticism has taken hold. Is the government's decision to demolish the Uighur
area Kashgar really due to an earthquake threat? Kashgar is a cultural icon. Parts
of the city have stood for 2000 years and within its labyrinth, Uighur traditions
are unchanged. 'We live as we did in the old times' says Tursun, a 6 generation
pot thrower.
