Family members were also detained, but no word is available on their fate.<\/p>\n
2016-05-09<\/p>\n
Authorities in northwestern China\u2019s troubled Xinjiang region have handed a seven-year prison term to an ethnic Ugyhur for watching a politically sensitive film on Muslim migration, sources in the region said.<\/p>\n
Eli Yasin, a resident of Chaghraq township in Aksu (in Chinese, Akesu) prefecture\u2019s Onsu (Wensu) county, was sentenced in February after being held since May 2015, sources said, adding that authorities had suspected Yasin and family members who viewed the film with him of planning to go abroad \u201cto wage jihad.\u201d<\/p>\n
Family circumstances argued against their having had such a plan, though, Hesen Eysa, security chief for Yasin\u2019s Karasu village, told RFA\u2019s Uyghur Service.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of them were over 40 years of age,\u201d Eysa said. \u201cThey had a farm, and they were struggling to survive and provide for their children\u2019s education.”<\/p>\n
\u201cThey showed no signs of opposing the government. At least I never saw any signs of this,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a security chief, I am having a hard time explaining these charges to the people in my village.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNone of this makes any sense. It is very unjust,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Relatives also held<\/strong><\/p>\n Detained with Yasin were two sisters and the sisters\u2019 husbands, all residents of nearby Toxula township and each with three to five children in their own families, sources told RFA.<\/p>\n No details were immediately available regarding additional sentences handed out, and police authorities in Onsu county hung up the phone on learning that a reporter from RFA\u2019s Uyghur Service had called them for comment.<\/p>\n The Chinese government\u2019s policy of \u201cstability at all costs\u201d is the root cause of such family tragedies in Xinjiang, Memet Toxti, a Uyghur living in exile in Canada, told RFA.<\/p>\n \u201cChina wants Uyghurs everywhere to know that the state is always watching them,\u201d Toxti, a former deputy chairman of the Munich-based World Uyghur Congress, said.<\/p>\n \u201cPunishing entire families is a method commonly used to silence Uyghurs before any acts of resistance can take place,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Heavy-handed rule<\/strong><\/p>\n Rights groups accuse Chinese authorities of heavy-handed rule in Xinjiang, including violent police raids on Uyghur households, restrictions on Islamic practices, and curbs on the culture and language of the Uyghur people.<\/p>\n China regularly vows to crack down on what it calls the \u201cthree evils\u201d of terrorism, separatism, and religious extremism in Xinjiang.<\/p>\n But experts outside China say Beijing has exaggerated the threat from Uyghur separatists, and that domestic policies are responsible for an upsurge in violence that has left hundreds dead since 2012.<\/p>\n Reported and translated by Shohret Hoshur for RFA\u2019s Uyghur Service. Written in English by Richard Finney.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Family members were also detained, but no word is available on their fate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2675,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"topic":[],"class_list":["post-2676","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\/2676","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=2676"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2676\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2676"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=2676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}