Recently in E Turkestan/Xinjiang Category

First he dropped off the map for 13-months, only to emerge in March from the Chinese gulag after an international outcry.   

Now the human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng vanished again, after a visit to Urumqi, the capital of the East Turkestan/Xinjiang region of western China, where he had been visiting his father-in-law.

China is increasingly rattled about unrest in Kyrgyzstan, fearing that it will stir up protests in its restive Muslim region of Xinjiang or East Turkestan.
Beijing said it was was "deeply concerned" about the situation and a declared that: "China ... hopes the country will restore peace soon and maintain stability."

"China hopes that relevant issues will be settled in a lawful way," a spokesman said, signalling Beijing's deep anxiety that local anger at its repressive measures will turn bloody once again.

A concerted new attack has been made on Yahoo email accounts of journalists and activists whose work relates to China. The attack has focused on Uighur activists in particular and compromised accounts include those of the World Uyghur Congress, an exile group that China accuses of inciting separatism in the frontier region of Xinjiang which Uighurs call East Turkestan. "I suspect a lot of information in my Yahoo account was downloaded," the group's spokesman, Dilxat Raxit said. An email account, he set up in Sweden, has been blocked for a month.

Foreign Correspondent of Australia has put together a vivid documentary entitled The Uighur Dilemma Its a tragic story of the destruction of the ancient and amazing old city of Kashgar. The Uighur Dilemma tries to give both sides of the story - Chinese and Uighur - a fair shake. Watch it and decide for yourself. The first segment serves as an introduction to the Uighurs' story. It does a good job of explaining the situation, and has some magnificent footage to go with it. Many groups are fighting for the preservation of old town Kashgar. One such group is fighting for Kashgar to be classified as a UN World Heritage site, which would provide non-Chinese oversight of the construction, preservation and limited demolition of old town Kashgar. The Uighurs are an Turkic ethnic group primarily living in the Chinese province of Xinjiang or East Turkestan as they know it. The region has seen upheavals and violence (most recently in July 2009). In the Uighur city of Kashgar the Chinese authorities have started a building development by destroying parts of the old city. While the authorities view this as earthquake prevention, some Uighurs are convinced it is the latest attempt by the Chinese authorities to control the Uighur population. In July 2009 violent clashes broke out in the region's capital Urumqi between the Uighurs and the Han Chinese immigrants. Over 200 people are reported to have been killed and over a thousand arrested. HT Uyghur Blog

China's Western province of East Turkestan went through the worst ethnic violence in decades on July 5, 2009 leading to a complete communications crackdown which is only now being lifted. The conflict left more than 150 people dead (see video) . Hundreds of paramilitary police with shields, rifles and clubs are taking over the Urumqi capital, after riots. Yesterday a local resident named Xiao Yong found he could now send and receive emails as usual without restrictions after surfing 32 websites.

• Turkish PM Erdoğan called the violence "a kind of genocide."
  

Gül TÜYSÜZ in ISTANBUL

A conference held in Istanbul over the weekend focused on China's traditionally Turkic Muslim region of East Turkestan (Xinjiang) and aimed to highlight the remote region's problems in the wake of July 2009 communal clashes.

The Free Eastern Turkistan Symposium was organized to emphasize the world's failure to acknowledge the human rights violations, policies of economic isolation and attacks against freedom of religion against the areas Uighur Muslims for the past 60 years, Osman Atalay, a board member for the Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Aid, or İHH said.

• First the US calls out China for its cruel repression of the Uighur population
• Now Chinese scientists explode the myth that ancient mummies are "Chinese."

• The US has just accusesd China of heavy handed treatment of its UIghur minority.
•  China's national broadcaster shows happy UIghur dancers, belting out patriotic tunes.

China's foreign ministry has denied that the country has been spying on political refugees living in Sweden.

The reaction comes after a Stockholm court jailed a Uighur refugee for 16 months for passing on information about other Uighurs to a Chinese agent.

The court said the man had infiltrated the World Uighur Congress, a political body for exiled Uighurs.

But a ministry spokesman in Beijing said the allegations were "totally groundless" and had "ulterior motives".

"The Chinese institutions functioning abroad and Chinese diplomatic staff are performing their responsibilities and abiding by the laws of the country where they are stationed," said Qin Gang.

He said all staff followed diplomatic conventions, so the accusations were "fabricated with ulterior motives".

CHINA'S UIGHURS Ethnically Turkic Muslims, mainly live in Xinjiang Made bid for independent state in 1940s Sporadic violence in Xinjiang since 1991 Uighurs worried about ethnic Han Chinese immigration and erosion of traditional culture Profile: Rebiya Kadeer China vows separatism crackdown

Babur Maihesuti, 62, was found guilty on Monday of collecting information about other Uighurs and passing it on to a Chinese spy posing as a diplomat and journalist.

The court said the case was "especially serious because the intelligence served a superpower which does not have full respect for human rights".

It said the verdict was based on "strong" prosecution evidence, including wire-tapped telephone conversations and interviews with Uighur witnesses.

Uighurs are a Turkic-speaking, mainly-Muslim people living in north-west China's Xinjiang region. Many complain of religious, cultural and political oppression.

Nearly 200 people were killed last July in riots in north-west China between Uighurs and China's majority Han.

The US State Department has just issued a blistering report detailing serial human abuses by the Chinese government against its ethnic Uighur population. Its worth reading in detail and most of the relevant sections have been posted below.