Author: Saibal Dasgupta
Publication: The Times of India
Date: July 11, 2008
URL: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/China_shuts_down_41_illegal_mosques/articleshow/3220173.cms
Chinese authorities have replaced top police
and security officials in the Muslim dominated Xinjiang province, which is
the hotbed of separatism and political violence. They have also closed down
41 "illegal" places of worship.
These places of worship were used as training
ground for conducting a "holy war", Chen Zhuangwei Chen, the police
chief of Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang province, said. Xinjiang, which borders
central Asia and Pakistan, has been the scene of a pro-independence movement
by a section of the eight million Uighurs living there for a long time.
The authorities also announced they have detained
82 "suspected terrorists" in the past six months in view of fears
that they might disrupt the Olympic Games. They belong to five groups that
"allegedly plotted sabotage against the Beijing Olympics", the official
Xinhua news agency quoted the police chief in Urumqi, Xinjiang's capital,
as saying.
The government has annouced the replacement
of army and security officials in the ranks of three deputy core commanders,
political commissars and the head of the Communist Party organisation department
in the army. The replacement suggests that the central government has been
unhappy about the inability of local officials to put down the surging separatist
movement in the province.
The new head of the organisation department
is Liu Xiang Song, the government announced. One of the three new core commanders
is Hanabati Sabukhaya, an officer from the Kazak race. Xinjiang borders Kazakisthan
and several other countries including Pakistan and Russia. "From now,
all police officers must act urgently, get involved once more in Olympic security,
to make sure large and small incidents alike do not happen," Chen was
quoted by official media as saying.
