Uighurs living in fear as Beijing cracks down

An atmosphere of fear pervades China's largely Muslim Xinjiang region, where strangers shy away from open discussion, and religious and civil rights are curbed.

So say residents of the 1.6 million-square-kilometer area in the far west which borders eight largely Muslim Central and South Asian nations and once made up the central portion of the Silk Road.

Since a series of bombings and protests culminated in violent and deadly riots in the city of Yining in 1997, Beijing has clamped down on all religious and cultural undertakings by the majority Uighur Muslim population.

The all pervasive "strike hard" campaign against separatism and extremism has succeeded in ending ethnic violence, but at the expense of people's rights, they say.

"The Chinese are putting far too much pressure on society," says an unemployed Uighur accountant in the regional capital of Urumqi, who only identifies herself as Rozhana.

"You cannot discuss politics publicly, you can hardly have any group meetings with friends without the Chinese suspecting that you are trying to overthrow them."

With a population of some 19 million people, including 8 million Uighur Muslims, residents say the crackdown has meant interaction between the Uighurs and the increasingly numerous Han Chinese is kept to a minimum.

"You only have to say `down with Mao Zedong [毛澤東], down with the Communist Party,' and the party will arrest you and execute you immediately," Hakim, a young Uighur cab driver in the trading center of Kashgar, says as he drives by a huge statue of revolutionary leader Mao.

"They are always arresting people, so everyone is afraid to say anything against the Chinese."

Zhang Xinping, a 50-year-old Chinese businessman who was born in Kashgar and who can speak the Turkish Uighur language, says he has long been despondent about the treatment of Uighurs.

But the government's efforts to oppose terrorism meant that the immigrant population of Chinese had more reason to dislike or look down upon them.

"I think that the Han Chinese coming to Kashgar should learn the Uighur language, but they are incapable of this," Zhang said.

"This is part of the problem here. If the Chinese made a little more effort to respect the Uighur culture then things would be better. The Chinese just don't have the habit of treating them better."

The crackdown became more severe after Muslim extremists carried out the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the US, further sharpening racial tensions amid a huge influx of Han Chinese entering the region as part of the government's effort to revitalize its west through economic development.

A 114-page report issued last week by two US rights groups highlighted the crushing campaign of religious repression being carried out against the Uighurs in the name of anti-separatism and counter-terrorism.

Penned by Human Rights Watch and Human Rights in China, it outlined how China denies Uighurs religious freedom, and by extension freedom of association, assembly, and expression.

"The worldwide campaign against terrorism has given Beijing the perfect excuse to crackdown harder than ever in Xinjiang," said Brad Adams, Asia director for Human Rights Watch.

"Other Chinese enjoy a growing freedom to worship, but the Uighurs, like the Tibetans, find that their religion is being used as a tool of control."