With the focus on unrest in Tibet, not much has been said about another disturbing development in China — government claims that it had stopped a terrorist attack on an airplane last month and arrested a terror ring that was allegedly planning attacks on the Beijing Olympics.
While the news may soon die down — largely unnoticed in the shadow of the Free Tibet debate — the allegations have serious repercussions for the population of China’s largest province, Xinjiang.
The accusations concern the Uighurs, a mostly Muslim, Turkic ethnic group that lives under an autonomous government that, like Lhasa’s, is a farce.
For more than a decade, there has been no evidence of attacks on civilians by Uighurs. That fact has repeatedly undermined Beijing’s efforts to gain support for the “war” on terror that it launched in Xinjiang soon after the Sept. 11 attacks in the US. China’s “war” on terror is a continuation of previous crackdowns in Xinjiang that sought to silence peaceful dissent — including those who appeal for democracy, religious freedom or true autonomy, not independence.
But by reclassifying dissidents in Xinjiang as terrorists, Beijing has sought to gain support from the US and other governments in blocking the activities of Uighurs at home and abroad. It has labeled US-based human-rights activist Rebiya Kadeer a terrorist — in much the same way it deals with the Dalai Lama. It has pressured the US and the UN to blacklist several Uighur groups as terrorist organizations, but has presented not a shred of evidence that these groups are pursuing a violent agenda.
A major obstacle to the success of Beijing’s campaign has been the outcry from non-governmental organizations and governments that have repeatedly asked: How can you wage a “war” on terror on people who are not terrorists? As the Uighur rights movement has gained momentum in the past three years, that question has become a thorn in the side of Beijing.
In this context, human-rights groups and Uighur activists abroad are calling on Beijing to proceed transparently with its prosecution of those whom it accuses of engaging in terrorist activities. Beijing has not presented evidence substantiating its claims that the plots are anything more than a twisted fantasy to justify its oppression in Xinjiang.
And as trials concerning Uighur dissidents are usually labeled state secrets, the chances that the facts would come to light are scant.
That should come as no surprise, as Beijing has blocked any unbiased probe into the Xinjiang region Gulja massacre for 11 years. Like the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989, that incident began with peaceful demonstrations and ended in a military crackdown. And with Beijing’s clampdown, it remains difficult to determine how the violence started.
That same secretiveness ensures that it is impossible to disprove allegations of Uighur violence today, which Beijing hopes will give it the upper hand as it seeks to silence dissent. The international community should not let these reports go unnoticed.
Governments should refuse to take Beijing’s allegations at face value, voice their opposition to oppression of peaceful dissent in Xinjiang and demand that Beijing substantiate its claims of terrorism. If genuine terrorist acts are being plotted, Beijing’s alarm would be legitimate, but it cannot justify the systematic religious and cultural repression it exerts on all Uighurs living within its borders.
Let us not forget Tibet’s neighbor to the north, who now, as much as ever, need the help of a critical international community to take Beijing to task over its actions.
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