China yesterday published a list of eight alleged terrorists from its Muslim northwest who it said had threatened the Beijing Olympics, and appealed to other countries for help in finding them.
“All the eight terrorists listed are members of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement [ETIM],” Public Security Bureau spokesman Wu Heping (吳和平) told reporters. “And they all took part in plotting, organizing and executing various terrorist activities targeting the Beijing Olympic Games.”
The ETIM, listed by China, the US and the UN as a terrorist organization, has been striving for many years to create an independent homeland in the Muslim-populated Chinese region of Xinjiang.
Xinjiang is a vast area of mountains and deserts that borders central Asia, and many of its 8.3 million Uighurs, a Muslim minority speaking a Turkic language, say they have suffered decades of repression under communist rule.
However Uighur dissidents and some human rights groups have said China has exaggerated the threat from so-called terrorists in Xinjiang to justify a harsh security crackdown there.
Wu appealed to other countries for help China in capturing the alleged terrorists.
“We hope that the governments of relevant countries and law enforcement agencies will ... track them down, immediately arrest them and hand them over to China so that we can hold them responsible for their crimes,” he said.
All eight were Chinese nationals with Uighur names.
Wu alleged some of the eight had organized terrorist training, recruited members, raised funds for terrorist activities and manufactured poisons and explosives.
Others had participated in militant training, Wu said.
Meanwhile, Beijing-based AIDS campaigner Wan Yanhai (萬延海) is back at work following a government-imposed shutdown of his activities during the recent Beijing Olympics, but he’s treading carefully.
He said police have tailed him recently and the government last month applied new pressure with a surprise tax probe of his Aizhixing Institute, which advocates for the rights of AIDS victims, a touchy subject in China.
Despite hopes the Olympics would improve human rights, China’s crackdown on dissidents before and during the Games has likely set the stage for a lasting period of even tighter controls, government critics say.
Wan, 44, who works from a cramped and dingy office, said China was unlikely to loosen the tightened grip taken in the Games run-up after developing an even deeper understanding of dissident activities during the crackdown.
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