18 June 2014<\/p>\n
The secret trial of a prominent Uighur scholar on charges of \u201cseparatism\u201d makes a mockery of China\u2019s claims to be a country based on the rule of law, Amnesty International said. <\/p>\n
Prominent Uighur scholar, Ilham Tohti, who was arrested in January 2014, has reportedly been secretly tried by a court of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps \u2013 a semi-military organization – according to the South China Morning Post<\/em> (SCMP). If convicted he faces anything from 10 years to life in prison, or even the death penalty. <\/p>\n \u201cIf these reports about a \u2018secret trial\u2019 prove to be true, this will truly be another dent in China\u2019s facade of being a country based on the rule of law. Tohti has been held incommunicado for the past six months with no access to lawyers in clear breach of international human rights law,\u201d said William Nee, Amnesty International\u2019s China Researcher. <\/p>\n \u201cWith violence on the rise in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, it\u2019s difficult to grasp why the authorities would target a prominent Uighur intellectual known for his commitment to non-violence and dialogue between ethnic groups. The relentless efforts by the authorities to silence and imprison Ilham Tohti have to be seen in the larger context of widespread repression of Uighurs.\u201d <\/p>\n Tohti\u2019s lawyer, Li Fangping, yesterday told the SCMP<\/em> that he has received information about the secret trial from two sources, but the authorities would neither confirm nor deny this. <\/p>\n Tohti, founder of Uighur Online website and an outspoken critic of Beijing\u2019s policies on Uighurs, is believed to be currently held in a detention centre in Urumqi, provincial capital of Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR). He was taken away from his home in Beijing by public security officers on 25 January 2014. Even after nearly six months in detention his lawyer has not been allowed to visit him. <\/p>\n Harsh \u201canti-terror\u201d response <\/strong><\/p>\n Tohti\u2019s secret trial comes amid an anti-terrorism \u201cstrike hard\u201d campaign, launched on 23 May by the Chinese authorities, one day after a deadly bombing attack on a market in Urumqi that killed 39 and injured 94. <\/p>\n China\u2019s response to the recent wave of violent attacks allegedly carried out by suspected Uighur groups has been very worrying. Suspects have been rounded up and tried in large numbers, and with such speed that it raises serious questions about the fairness of trials. <\/p>\n \u201cThe harsh, politicized response towards any peaceful Uighur critics \u2013 not to mention other people in the New Citizen\u2019s Movement \u2013 essentially rules out the possibility of any meaningful dialogue,\u201d said William Nee. <\/p>\n Background <\/strong><\/p>\n The Communist Party seems to have recognized the need to address many long-standing concerns of the population in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region \u2013 such as unemployment among ethnic minorities, sharing of natural resources, and the need for mutual understanding and ethnic solidarity. <\/p>\n Although the Communist Party has declared its ethnic policies on the XUAR to be \u201ccorrect\u201d, there have been some subtle signs of re-adjusting Party policy. On 28 May, the Party convened its Second Central Work Forum on the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region and reconfirmed its commitment to the overarching objectives of maintaining social stability and long-lasting governance and peace. <\/p>\n While fighting terrorism and restricting religious extremism were reiterated, there was also an emphasis on employment, development, education, infrastructure development, and ethnic solidarity. The ethnicities needed to \u201cmutually understand, tolerate, appreciate, respect, and help each other\u201d and at the same time each ethnicity should, \u201c\u2026.build a national consciousness, a citizenship consciousness, and a Chinese consciousness\u2026\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 18 June 2014 The secret trial of a prominent Uighur scholar on charges of \u201cseparatism\u201d makes a mockery of China\u2019s claims to be a country based on the rule of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"topic":[],"class_list":["post-789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789","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=789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=789"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}