Officers opened fire on and killed three relatives of a Uyghur arrested on suspicion of involvement in a terrorist plot.<\/p>\n
2015-06-02<\/span><\/p>\n An incident involving the killing of three female relatives of a Uyghur suspect who was arrested during China\u2019s most recent \u201cstrike hard\u201d campaign has come to light in the wake of recent reports by state media that authorities had foiled scores of \u201cterrorist\u201d plots in the country\u2019s restive northwest.<\/p>\n Police in Aksu (in Chinese, Akesu) prefecture in Xinjiang killed the wife, mother and sister of 24-year-old Nurmemet Omer during a raid last July 27, officer Zulpiqar Imin, who was involved in the operation, recently told RFA\u2019s Uyghur Service.<\/p>\n Officers detained Omer in mid-July on suspicion of being part of a plotted attack in the prefecture\u2019s Toqsu (Xinhe) county, although he denied the charges.<\/p>\n When the police team went to Omer\u2019s home in Ujme village, Yultuzbagh township, they found the house vacant.<\/p>\n They broadened the search when they received information that Omer\u2019s wife, mother and sister were hiding in a friend\u2019s house in neighboring Gholeriq village, which they raided on July 27.<\/p>\n \u201cFour people were in the house when we surrounded it,\u201d Imin said. \u201cWe called to them to surrender, but no one followed the order. Instead, they threw a few Molotov cocktails and homemade petrol bombs at us from the windows of the house.\u201d<\/p>\n Although the force of the bombs was not strong and did not injure the police or damage their vehicles, it gave the officers a legitimate reason to open fire, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cOf course, there were some disputes between our commanders when they decided to open fire,\u201d Imim said. \u201cSome said the three women needed to be captured alive, because it was unclear whether the bombs were thrown by them or the man who was in the house.\u201d<\/p>\n Some argued that the women were guilty because they failed to surrender when ordered, so police opened fire and killed Omer\u2019s 22-year-old wife Rexime Toxti, his mother who was in her mid-40s, his sister who was in her early 20s, and a male occupant, he said<\/p>\n After the incident, Omer received a 10-year sentence, although Imin said he did not know what specific charges were brought against him.<\/p>\n Relatives sought information about Omer<\/b><\/p>\n Qasim Hesen, the head of Ujme village, said authorities informed residents that the three women were strong supporters of Omer\u2019s terrorist gang and guilty of attacking the police.<\/p>\n \u201cBut we don\u2019t know who was or used to be in Omer\u2019s terrorist gang and what they planned to do,\u201d he told RFA. \u201cThe police investigated the three women and came to the conclusion [that they were involved] after killing them.\u201d<\/p>\n A village resident who requested anonymity said no one in the village believes the women had links to political or criminal activities.<\/p>\n Villagers heard that they went to Gholeriq village to ask Omer\u2019s friends about him because police had told them nothing about the reason for his detention, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThey were not escaping from the village or hiding somewhere as officials noted,\u201d he said. \u201cThe three were killed while they tried to find out about Omer\u2019s case.\u201d<\/p>\n The Xinjiang region, which is home to more than 10 million Turkic-speaking Uyghurs, has seen an upsurge in violence that has left hundreds dead since 2012, and which China has blamed on terrorists and Islamist insurgents seeking to establish an independent state.<\/p>\n Chinese media last week said police had caught or thwarted 181 different terrorist gangs in Xinjiang during its most recent yearlong crackdown in the largely Muslim region.<\/p>\n Authorities rolled out the strike hard campaign following a deadly suicide bombing in May 2014 in the regional capital Urumqi, which they blamed on Uyghur separatists.<\/p>\n The campaign has included police raids on Uyghur households, restrictions on Islamic practices, and curbs on the culture and language of the Uyghur people.<\/p>\n Reported by Shohret Hoshur of RFA\u2019s Uyghur Service. Translated by Shohret Hoshur. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Officers opened fire on and killed three relatives of a Uyghur arrested on suspicion of involvement in a terrorist plot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1860,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"topic":[],"class_list":["post-1861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1861\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1861"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=1861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}