Author: AFP
Publication: The Hindustan Times
Date: October 25, 2001
URL: http://www.hindustantimes.com/nonfram/251001/dLAME79.asp
Authorities in China's Muslim-majority
Xinjiang region have declared a "big victory" in smashing what they called
separatists, religious extremists and terrorists, state press said on Thursday.
"Our five-year unabated attack on
hardened national minority separatists, leaders of religious extremist
forces and violent criminal terrorists have achieved a series of big victories,"
Xinjiang party boss Wang Lequan said at a regional parliamentary session
on Wednesday.
Wang was quoted by the China News
Service as telling delegates the regional government employed 15,000 people
a year to tackle separatist and extremist activities.
The campaign would continue under
a "high pressure, strike hard" campaign in which the government would maintain
"the attack initiative, strike early and deal with the punishment later",
Wang said.
Beijing has vowed to stamp out the
activities of separatists in Xinjiang fighting for an independent state
of East Turkestan.
The central government recently
insisted separatists in Xinjiang, which borders Afghanistan, should be
dealt with under the global anti-terrorism fight that erupted after the
September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States.
Such a position has alarmed human
rights groups who condemn China's rights record and accuse Beijing of extending
its crackdowns to groups peacefully calling for political change.
"The Chinese government's call for
a crackdown on domestic 'terrorism' raises fears that repression of Muslim
ethnic groups in the Xinjiang will increase and the dismal human rights
situation in the region will further deteriorate," Amnesty International
said earlier this month.
Several hundred ethnic Uighurs in
the region accused of involvement in separatism had been executed since
the mid-1990s, with thousands of others detained, imprisoned and tortured,
Amnesty added.
The group also criticized the government's
practice of sending in work teams to carry out "patriotic education" inside
mosques and schools, interfering in Muslim religious practices.
