Amnesty International renews its call on the Chinese authorities to release an ethnic Uighur prisoner of conscience jailed on separatism charges after his family reported that he is being tortured in a Xinjiang prison.

Ablikim Abdiriyim, the son of prominent Uighur activist Rebiya Kadeer, told relatives visiting him last week that he has been held in solitary confinement since 3 November after witnessing an incident that prison authorities wanted to keep quiet. His health has since deteriorated sharply.

The news comes exactly a year after 20 Uighur asylum-seekers were forcibly deported to China from Cambodia. China has not made public the whereabouts of the group, which included two children, since they were seized on 19 December 2009.

“The alleged torture of Ablikim Abdiriyim is the latest example of systematic human rights abuses suffered by China’s Uighur population at the hands of the Chinese authorities,” said Catherine Baber, Asia-Pacific deputy director at Amnesty International.

The Chinese authorities must investigate allegations that Ablikim Abdiriyim has been tortured and make sure he has access to medical help for any injuries he may have suffered.”

Ablikim Abdiriyim was sentenced to nine years in prison for “instigating and engaging in secessionist activities” in April 2007.

Despite Chinese state media claiming his trial was fair, Abdiriyim’s family says he was not given the right to legal representation of his choice and his “confession” was likely to have been made under torture.

Ablikim Abduriyim’s relatives visited him in prison on 13 December and he told them he had been tortured. He said he was also transferred to solitary confinement after refusing to sign a document denying that he had witnessed a controversial incident in the prison.

Ablikim Abdiriyim was detained in June 2006. His mother is Rebiya Kadeer, a prominent Uighur businesswoman and activist whose family has been targeted by the authorities since she was detained as a prisoner of conscience in 1999.

This intensified after she was released on medical parole on 17 March 2005 and left China for the USA.

On 27 November 2006, the day after Rebiya Kadeer was elected president of the World Uyghur Congress (WUC), a court sentenced two of her sons, Alim Abdiriyim and Kahar Abdiriyim, to fines amounting to millions of US dollars, and Alim to seven years’ imprisonment on charges of tax evasion.

The torture of Ablikim Abdiriyim appears to be the latest example of the unacceptable persecution against Rebiya Kadeer’s family,” said Catherine Baber.
Amnesty International has also called on China to account for the whereabouts of 20 Uighur asylum-seekers deported to China from Cambodia a year ago.

Nineteen of the individuals fled to Cambodia from China’s Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region in the wake of riots in the city of Urumqi of July 2009, fearing persecution by the Chinese authorities.

The UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, was in the process of reviewing their applications for refugee status when Cambodia succumbed to pressure from the Chinese government to deport the individuals.

The deportations attracted international condemnation as there were fears the group would suffer serious human rights violations on their return.

“We condemn the lack of transparency surrounding the cases of these individuals and urge the Chinese government to tell the world what happened to them,” said Catherine Baber.

Ablikim Abdiriyim is the son of prominent Uighur activist Rebiya Kadeer

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Amnesty International has condemned the closed trial and conviction of three Uighur website managers on state security charges.

Dilshat Perhat, web manager and owner of the Diyarim website was sentenced to five years by an Urumqi court in a closed trial on 21 July; Nureli, web manager of Salkin was sentenced to three years; and Nijat Azat, web manager of Shabnam was sentenced to 10 years, according to Dilmurat Perhat, Dishat’s brother.

The three websites were among the most popular Uighur language news and community forums operating in Xinjiang prior to the 5 July 2009 riots.

”The Chinese governments’ attempts to control all online activity in Xinjiang is not going to silence those with genuine grievances,” said Sam Zarifi, Asia-Pacific Director for Amnesty International. “These three Uighur web managers must be released.”

Dilmurat was repeatedly warned by Xinjiang authorities against speaking to the media about his brother Dilshat’s case. He had earlier complied with their demands out of fear that his brother could be convicted. “But today, I’m not worried because my brother has been sentenced already,” Dilmurat told Amnesty International from the United Kingdom.

“This government charge against my brother and the other Uighur websites was for endangering state security, but they didn’t do anything” said Dilmurat, who had worked with his brother Dilshat in managing the Diyarim website.

“My brother was supportive of the Chinese government always. We ran the website from 2002 to 2009 – for seven years, we didn’t have any problems with the Chinese government.”

Dilmurat says that the secret nature of the Urumqi trials were a result of government fear of protest, because “the Chinese government has not any evidence to sentence these people.”

He suspects that web managers came under pressure from authorities due to articles that anonymous people posted on their websites prior to the 5 July, 2009 riots in Urumqi. The riots led to 197 deaths according to official figures, and more than 1,400 detentions.

Amnesty International’s investigation of the riots suggests that the Chinese government used excessive force in dealing with the riots and in their aftermath, arbitrarily detained Uighurs, and mistreated detainees. AI’s findings were published in June 2010 as ‘Justice, Justice’ – The July 2009 protests in Xinjiang, China.

From 3 July 2009, Dilmurat’s brother notified Chinese security officials five to six times to notify them that articles calling for a peaceful demonstration had been posted anonymously on the Diyaram website, and that he had deleted them. A demonstration notice was posted again at 3:30 am on Sunday 5 July, on the Diyarim, Salkin and Shabnam websites, and the web managers were not able to remove them until later in the day.

Following the riots, the three websites were all closed down by government censors.

Amnesty International is calling for the release of the Uighur language web managers and for the release of other arbitrarily detained Uighurs.

Prominent Uighur journalist Hairat Niyaz was recently sentenced to 15 years imprisonment through a secret trial in Urumqi, for little more than giving interviews to Hong Kong media.

Uighur writer Gulmira Imin, who had contributed to the Salkin website, was sentenced to life imprisonment in April 2010 for ‘splittism, leaking state secrets and organising an illegal demonstration.’ During her trial she alleged torture and ill-treatment in detention.

Web manager Dilshat Perhat was sentenced to five years in jail by an Urumqi court

Amnesty International has condemned a 15-year prison sentence reportedly imposed on a Uighur journalist who warned Chinese authorities over potential ethnic violence in Xinjiang province on the eve of the July 2009 riots.

Hairat (also known as Hailaite or Gheyret) Niyaz was reportedly tried and convicted on state security charges by a court in Xinjiang on Friday.

According to reports, prosecutors relied on essays he had written prior to the July 2009 riots in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang, and interviews he gave to Hong Kong media after the violence.

“Fifteen years imprisonment is an outrageous punishment for journalism that highlighted the longstanding grievances of the Uighur people,” said Catherine Baber, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for the Asia-Pacific Programme.

“Adding to this outrage is the fact that Hairat Niyaz, in his words as an ‘ordinary person of conscience’, had urged the authorities to take emergency measures to prevent ethnic violence.”

Hairat Niyaz was arrested in October 2009, because, according to police, he had now “given too many interviews”.

In these interviews, Hairat Niyaz highlighted mounting grievances against the implementation of the so-called “bilingual” education policy that had led to many Uighur teachers being laid off.

He spoke about mounting local resentment of employment initiatives sending young Uighurs, mainly women, to work in Southern Chinese factories.

“Hairat Niyaz is a prisoner of conscience and should be released immediately,” said Catherine Baber.

At his trial Hairat Niyaz was denied the right to be represented by a lawyer of his own choosing, and only one family member, his wife, was permitted to attend the proceedings.

During the trial he insisted that he had broken no laws and was only carrying out his duty as a citizen and journalist.

Hairat Niyaz is an established journalist and administrator of Uighurbiz, one of the websites accused of promoting the July unrest. He had been a senior journalist with the Xinjiang Economic Daily, Chief Editorial Director of Xinjiang Legal Daily, and Deputy Director of the Legal Magazine Fazhi Zongheng.

“Hairat Niyaz’s testimony and those of other witnesses to the unrest must be openly investigated if we are to get to the truth of what happened in July 2009 in Xinjiang,” said Catherine Baber.

Amnesty International has called for an independent investigation into the violence of July 2009, including into what and who caused the violence, how many people died, and who killed them.

Hairat Niyaz was arrested because he had 'given too many interviews'

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Excerpt:

But media experts and Uyghur activists say that China’s state-controlled media are working to frame the story in favor of the regime, a strategy one Hong Kong-based Chinese media expert calls “Control 2.0.”

“These media feed off of the original Xinhua reports, amplifying their effect. Those same reports, with only slight permutations in many cases, become AFP, Reuters, and AP reports.”

Read the full article: World Media Follow Beijing’s Lead in Xinjiang Reporting

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A witness in the Xinjiang region of China has reported that Chinese soldiers shot at Uighur protesters Sunday, causing many deaths and injuries. They said that dead bodies were seen being put into military vehicles.

Uighurs were protesting in the northwestern Chinese city of Urumqi after an incident in a toy factory in Shaoguan City, Guangdong Province a week ago. Allegedly, a fight broke out in the factory between several hundreds of Uighur and Han Chinese workers after a rape. Apparently there were 118 wounded and two female Uighur workers killed. All Uighur workers were fired following the incident—causing protests to build in Urumqi, according to state media.

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