Authorities in China’s unruly western region of Xinjiang have reduced the sentences of 11 people jailed for threatening state security after declaring the success of a deradicalization program, Xinhua news agency reported.
Hundreds of people have been killed in violence in Xinjiang in the past few years. The government blames the unrest on Muslim militants who want to establish an independent state called East Turkestan for minority Uighurs, a mostly Muslim people from Xinjiang who speak a Turkic language.
Seven of the convicts had their life sentences reduced to jail terms ranging from 19.5 years to 20 years, including people convicted of instigating “secessionist activities” or participating in terror attacks, Xinhua said late on Tuesday.
The other four had their jail terms cut by six months from initial sentences ranging from eight years to 15 years, it added.
A spokesman for the main Uighur exile group dismissed the report as “political propaganda.”
Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Chairman Shohrat Zakir was quoted by Xinhua as saying that the region’s jails had been very successful in recent years at their deradicalization efforts, with a “majority” of convicts becoming law-abiding citizens.
Efforts need to continue in this regard with a focus on those convicted for harming state security, he added.
Xinhua said this had been accomplished by inviting religious leaders and scholars to talk to prisoners about “correct religious belief.”
The report said one of the convicts, Memet Tohti Memet Rozi, had close contact with the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, the group Beijing blames for much of the violence in Xinjiang, and the Taliban in Afghanistan, where he helped train people from Xinjiang to become militants.
“I could not hold back my tears when I learned of the commutation,” Xinhua quoted him as saying. “I’m now split with all separatists and terrorists and will strive to become a law-abiding citizen.”
Reuters was unable to reach officials in Xinjiang for comment, or any family members of the convicts to verify their stories.
World Uyghur Congress spokesman Dilxat Raxit said news of the commutations was designed as a “political propaganda tool” to cover up the government’s use of the term extremist to repress the Uighur people.
“Be aware that China is using the so-called commutations to mislead the international community and continues to use antiterrorism to step up its repression,” he said in an e-mailed statement.
In other developments, Sichuan Province has ordered shopkeepers to hand in portraits of the Dalai Lama, state-run media said yesterday, quoting Beijing experts likening the Nobel laureate to former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.
Sichuan, which includes several ethnically Tibetan areas, set up a “law enforcement squad” of cultural bureau personnel, police and other officials to enforce the drive, the Global Times newspaper reported.
The aim was to “crack down on pornography and illegal publications, which include portraits of the Dalai Lama” ahead of the Lunar New Year, it quoted Gou Yadong, director of the provincial publicity department, as saying.
People were more than welcome to put on show pictures of the country’s past and present leaders, he added, referring to former heads of the Chinese Communist Party.
The Global Times also cited Lian Xiangmin (廉湘民), of the China Tibetology Research Center in Beijing, as saying that for Chinese, hanging the Dalai Lama’s picture has the same effect as displaying Hussein’s image would have for people in the US.
Beijing brands the Dalai Lama a dangerous separatist, despite his repeated statements condemning violence, and in Tibet it tightly controls images of him as part of what many Tibetans see as official repression of their religion and culture.
Additional reporting by AFP
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not