Yining, Xinjiang Provence China

In Xinjiang the winter wind makes everything bitterly unbearable. Yining sits about as close to the Kazakhstan border as you can be without being told to leave immediately.

I have spent the better part of the last month or so trying to understand what happened to me during my visit last month to Yining. The travel alone was an adventure in itself. But now I find myself grappling with some issues that only surfaced about a week or so ago as I wanted a deeper understanding of why from the moment I stepped off the bus that cold morning to talk to the police in charge of the check point, I felt unease, tense, almost paranoid. I kept thinking this is all in your head. I thought that a police check point at the edge of a city near the frontiers of Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, India and all was a matter of routine considering the trouble China had in Urumqi in July of 2009. What I didn't realize until about a week ago was that Yinning had been the scene of some of the bloodiest Uighur riots to date. Call that naive or just plain lazy for not digging deeper about this area other than wikopedia a lot of what happened and could have happened to me makes a lot of sense now. Had I know then what I found out now, I may have been hesitant to have spent time and resources getting out there. When I left with Colin I had a gut feeling this was going to be different and joked about the Secret Police hauling me off to prison for just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It's the kind of joke everyone tells when they are safely no where near the problem. I on the other hand happened to have thrown myself into it with the brazenness of a twenty year old intent on proving something to the world. I knew the Chinese were having problems with the Uighur. I knew the military was out there. What I didn't realize until I got back was how dangerous Xinjiang Provence proved to be and had I misstepped or trusted the wrong situation, things could have gone south for me rapidly. Thanks to part to not throwing caution to the wind this time which is my MO and my acute ability to know when to leave the party, I am here to talk about it.
I'm sitting here in Wuxi now writing this and thinking what an adventure! As I have said before Yining is located along the Ili River a scant hundred kilometers from the border of Kyrgyzstan a very mountainous region that sports at least twenty indigenous peoples the largest of them the Uighur. In order to fully understand Yining I have added a couple of articles that will help enlighten you to the situation that I encountered a month ago.

This article is done as a movie script that I think needs some perusing before I start talking about my experience.
DATE=9/15/2000
TYPE=BACKGROUND REPORT
TITLE=CHINA-YINING RIOTS
NUMBER=5-47006
BYLINE=LETA HONG FINCHER
DATELINE=YINING, XINJIANG PROVINCE
CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO: China is recovering from a deadly explosion
this month in the capital of its far western province,
Xinjiang - where about the half the population is
Uighur Muslim and there are deep ethnic divisions.
While the government says the blast was an accident,
and has ruled out terrorism, Xinjiang is a place where
the tension and potential for violence is palpable.
Beijing Correspondent Leta Hong Fincher recently
visited one trouble spot in Xinjiang, and brings us a
report from the city of Yining, the scene of ethnic
riots just three years ago.

TEXT:

/// TEENAGER ACT IN CHINESE, THEN FADE ///

This Muslim Kazak teenager, a high school student in
Yining, tells his story slowly at first, and only on
condition of anonymity. He was 14 years old in 1997,
when Xinjiang's border city near Kazakhstan exploded
into riots between its Muslim Uighurs and Chinese
militia.

/// TEENAGER ACT TWO IN CHINESE, THEN FADE ///

He says they were in class the day it all began.
Their teacher told them that the Uighurs had started
rioting, so it was too dangerous to go outside. He
says for three days, the students were kept in school,
waiting for the unrest to subside.

/// TEENAGER ACT THREE IN CHINESE, THEN FADE ///

We were so scared, we didn't dare sleep at night, he
says.

No one knows exactly what happened in Yining three
years ago, but the city remains an open wound.
Xinjiang officials warned reporters on a rare half-day
visit to this troubled city not to venture out alone.

/// BEGIN OPT ///

/// CITY SOUNDS EST, THEN FADE ///

Near the city's central square, young Uighur men
exchange cash over a card game. A Uighur boy who
looks no more than 15 years old quickly sweeps a
pile of pornographic video-CDs off a table in the
street when he sees a Westerner approach.

/// END OPT ///

None of the Uighurs in town will talk about the riot -
possibly the greatest threat to Chinese Communist rule
over its ethnic Muslims in the last decade.

/// ALBASBAI ACT IN CHINESE, THEN FADE ///

The governor of the local prefecture, Albasbai Raham,
says the trouble started on February 5th, 1997, with a
small group of Muslim separatists bent on spreading
chaos. He says they wanted to break up the unity of
the nation, and began anti-Chinese riots that lasted
for two days. He says security forces quickly re-
established control, and fewer than 10 people
were killed.

But human rights groups tell a different story.
Arlette Laduguie is an Asia researcher for Amnesty
International in London. She says the trouble in
Xinjiang can be traced back about 10 years to the
break-up of the Soviet Union and the establishment of
independent Central Asian republics on the border with
Xinjiang. She says Chinese authorities feared that
its ethnic Uighurs would be inspired to create their
own independent state, and therefore started a
campaign to suppress Uighur culture and religion.

/// LADUGUIE ACT ///

What started on that date in February 1997 was
not a riot, but a demonstration by a group of
several hundred mainly young Uighurs, who
marched through the streets chanting slogans and
asking for freedom of
religion. It's only later on that the
demonstration degenerated into rioting and the
circumstances in which this happened, the
responsibility of the security forces for
example is not clear, still now.

/// END ACT///

/// KAZAK TEENAGER FOUR IN CHINESE, THEN FADE ///

The high school student from Yining says his teacher,
who is Han Chinese, told the class that what she
called counter-revolutionary Uighurs were captured by
police, horded into an open place nearby, and frozen
to death.

Because the city has been sealed off from outsiders
for so long, it is impossible to verify what happened
to the demonstrators. But Ms. Laduguie of Amnesty
says between 300 and 500 protesters were arrested
within hours of starting their march, which she says
was initially peaceful. Based on interviews with many
Uighur sources, she says police indeed appear to have
tried to freeze the demonstrators arrested that day.

/// LADUGUIE ACT TWO ///

All accounts say that at some point, they were
hosed with very cold water by soldiers or
policemen, for reasons that are not explained.
One has to bear in mind that this was in
February in the middle of the winter, when it
was freezing cold in that region certainly.

/// END ACT ///

Ms. Laduguie says it's not clear if anyone died from
hypothermia or frostbite, but some of the detainees
had to have their frozen feet, fingers or hands
amputated. She says by February 6th, a large number of
anti-riot troops had been mobilized in the city, and
clashes between Uighurs and security forces lasted for
more than a week.

During the two weeks after the violence subsided, as
many as five-thousand people were arrested, including
relatives and friends of anyone who supported the
initial demonstrators. Ms. Laduguie says Uighur
sources estimate 70 or 80 people died during the
unrest.

/// BEGIN OPT ///

/// LADUGUIE ACT THREE ///

There were reports of people dying after being
taken in police custody as a result of severe
torture and because armed police and the army
were patrolling streets constantly, no one knew
exactly who was in custody, in jail, and who was
just perhaps hiding somewhere or disappeared.
And during that period of time, apparently the bodies
of some people badly beaten up were found in the
street.

/// END ACT /// END OPT ///

Mr. Albasbai, the local governor, dismisses these
unofficial reports.

/// ALBASBAI TWO - LAUGHS, ACT IN CHINESE, FADE ///

What you just said is nothing but hearsay, says the
governor. He says police never took people away and
froze them. He says the government handled what he
calls the February 5th incident according to Chinese
law, and if the same thing happened today, he would
handle it in exactly the same way.

/// UIGHUR MUSIC FROM YINING STREETS, THEN FADE ///

Since the 1997 riots, the Chinese government crackdown
on Uighurs appears to have continued. Amnesty
International says China executed 190 people in the
region between January 1997 and April 1999 alone- -
the vast majority of whom were Uighurs charged with
terrorist or anti-government crimes.

But although some militant Uighurs have agitated for
the creation of an independent state, most of them
just want to practice their religion without
interference from the government.

/// KAZAK TEENAGER FIVE ACT IN CHINESE, THEN FADE ///

The Muslim Kazak student in Yining says that ever
since the riots, students have been forbidden from
going to mosques. His teacher says praying will
interfere with their studies.(signed)

NEB/HK/LHF/JO




15-Sep-2000 02:51 AM EDT (15-Sep-2000 0651 UTC)
NNNN

Source: Voice of America


With China’s crackdown, Muslim religion could be disappeared in 10 years
Posted by chinaview on November 8, 2008
Ryan Anson, Foreign Service, San Francisco Chronicle, USA, Friday, November 7, 2008-
(11-07) 04:00 PST Hotan, China – Following a spate of political violence, security has been so tight around here that a 25-year-old Muslim jade dealer agreed to talk to a reporter only if they met 20 miles outside this historic Silk Road town in remote northwestern China.
“I wanted to study teachings like the Hadith,” said the man who identified himself only as Hussein, referring to a collection of the prophet Muhammad’s sayings. “I’m too old now. It makes me sad.”
As children, Hussein and millions of other young Uighurs never attended the religious schools known as madrassas or prayed at mosques because of a government ban on Islamic education for those under 18. Since Hussein never learned about religious laws governing marriage and family, he feels unprepared to have children, and he wonders whether future generations will be able to practice their faith before adulthood.
“Maybe in 10 years, there will be no more religion in Xinjiang” (province), said Hussein.
Human rights groups and Uighur exile organizations echo such concern.
Since the end of the Olympic Games in late August, the Chinese government’s crackdown on Uighurs with alleged separatist ties in this oil-rich province has escalated, according to Alim Seytoff, general secretary of the Uighur American Association, based in Washington, D.C.
History of tension
Friction between Beijing and China’s largest Muslim minority community is hardly new. Uighurs have long chafed at restrictions on Islam, which include studying Arabic only at government schools, banning government workers from practicing Islam and barring imams from teaching religion in private.
But the latest round of unrest is the worst since an uprising in the town of Yining 11 years ago killed scores of people, observers and residents say. Since August, at least 33 people have been killed in a series of attacks and bombings……. (more details from San Francisco Chronicle)
Posted in China, Human Rights, Law, NW China, News, People, Politics, Religious, Social, World, Xinjiang, Yining, ethnic | 1 Comment »
Human Rights Activist’s Personal Account of China Gulja after Massacre
Posted by chinaview on February 8, 2007
Amnesty International (AI), 1 February 2007-
Rebiya Kadeer, nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006, is a Uighur human rights activist and former prisoner of conscience. In November 2006, she was also elected president of the World Uighur Congress (WUC) in Munich. She lives in exile in the US. Here is her personal account of Gulja (Yining City) after the massacre on 5 February 1997.
I began hearing about terrible events occurring in Gulja (also called as Yining in China) in early February 1997, and decided – as a Uighur and a member of the Chinese National People’s Congress, that I had to go to see for myself what was happening.
I arrived in Gulja ( Yining ) City in the morning of 7 or 8 February, and went to the home of a Uighur friend of mine.
In the afternoon my friend took me to the home of another Uighur family whose two sons had been killed during the Chinese military crackdown on the peaceful protestors in Gulja ( Yining ) a couple of days earlier. Their daughter had been arrested and her whereabouts were unknown. The parents were pale and highly distraught.
Just as I was trying to talk with them, the Ili Prefectural Police and Chinese Military officers and soldiers burst into the house. The soldiers pulled the parents by the hair and kicked them really hard. The top military officer ordered me to put my hands on my head and to face the wall and said, “if you resist or shout and scream, we will shoot you.” It was clear that it was the Chinese military officer in command, not the prefectural police, who didn’t dare say anything in front of him. They forced me to strip completely naked and searched all my clothes.
After finding nothing I was ordered to put my clothes back on, and was taken to the prefectural police station for further questioning. The police chief warned me not to visit any more homes and to leave the city immediately. He said I would be held responsible for the deaths of any people I visited who passed information on to me, and even my own death if something terrible happened. I was then allowed to leave the police station. I nevertheless resolved to stay in the city to gather more information.
As I left the police station someone dropped a note in front of me which read “Go and visit the Yengi Hayat Neighbourhood.” When I arrived in that neighbourhood I saw a large house with all the doors open, and even some food on the table, but with no one at home.
I knocked at the house next door, but no one answered. I tried another house, and a Hui Muslim opened the door and addressed me in perfect Uighur. I asked him what had happened to the people in the house next door. He said they may have been killed in the demonstration. He said they had been really nice neighbours. When I asked him how many people had lived in the house he was not comfortable answering, but he said many had been killed in that neighbourhood and taken away in military trucks.
I asked him if he could direct me to the home of a Uighur family in the neighbourhood, but he said most Uighurs would be too scared to let me into their homes. But he pointed me to the house of an Uzbek family.
A 60-year old Uzbek woman opened the door. Despite her concern that I was being followed she gave me some tea and spoke to me about the demonstration and the crackdown. She said she had seen numerous Chinese military trucks piled high with dead or beaten Uighurs going into the local Yengi Hayat Prison but had not seen people leaving. She said she was certain that nearly 1000 Uighurs had been taken into the prison, but that the prison could only accommodate 500 prisoners. Furthermore, she said she saw many military trucks leaving the prison that were filled with dirt. Many others I spoke with had also witnessed this. Many suspected that dead bodies were buried in the dirt and were being taken out to be disposed of.
Later, I visited the home of another individual, Abdushukur Hajim, who had not participated in the demonstration but who had witnessed killings by the Chinese military. While at his home, the Ili Prefectural Police broke in and detained me for a second time, again taking me back to the police station. I learned later that this gentleman was subsequently arrested and sentenced to two years in prison for passing “state secrets” to me. When he was released two years later he had had a mental breakdown.
Even after my second detention and warning by the Ili Prefectural Police I did not leave Ghulja. I simply felt it was my responsibility to bear witness to the events there and to gather information. I was eventually detained a third time. When I arrived at the police station they said “we’ve told you repeatedly to leave but you are still here. OK, then, if you are so interested to know what happened here then look at this.”
They then showed me footage they had filmed of the military crack-down in Gulja in the proceeding days. I believe their intention was to terrify me and to intimidate me into silence. I watched the footage in the police station with several other people, including the prefectural police chief. I have never seen such viciousness in my life and it is difficult for me to adequately describe the horror of the scenes in the film. In one part dozens of military dogs were attacking – lunging and biting at, peaceful demonstrators, including women and children. Chinese PLA soldiers were bludgeoning the demonstrators – thrashing at their legs until they buckled and fell to the ground. Those on the ground – some alive, others dead, were then dragged across the ground and dumped all together into dozens of army trucks.
The footage also captured a young Uighur girl screaming, “Semetjan”, then running to a young man who was bleeding and being dragged by a Chinese soldier to a truck. Another soldier knocked her down and shot her dead right on the spot. He then dragged her by the hair and dumped her into the same truck into which the young man had been thrown. In another part of the film gunshots were fired into a group of Uighur children, aged 5 to 6, who were with a woman holding a baby, all were shot. It wasn’t clear where the guns were being fired from, whether from a rooftop or truck-top. There were tanks in the street, and in the film one could see three kinds of PLA soldiers: those with a helmet, baton, and shield; those with automatic weapons; and those with rifles with bayonets. In the film I heard Chinese soldiers shouting, “kill them!, kill them!” I heard one officer shouting to a soldier, “Is he a Uighur or Chinese? Don’t touch the Chinese but kill the Uighur.”
After watching the footage I felt I had done what I could. I had seen enough of the horror. I left Gulja City for Urumchi. Upon arriving at the Gulja airport I was strip-searched by agents of the Chinese National Security Bureau. They confiscated all of my belongings, including my clothing and luggage. They gave me new clothing to wear and escorted me to the airplane.
Approximately ten days after my return to Urumchi, one woman and two young men from Gulja ( Yining ) came to my office. They told me that they hadn’t participated in the demonstration in Gulja ( Yining ) but since the Chinese authorities indiscriminately arresting many Uighurs, including those who hadn’t participated in the demonstration, they decided to flee to Urumchi. One of them said his father was even a communist party member, but he still didn’t feel safe. The woman told me with tears in her eyes that Chinese soldiers fired into a crowd of Uighurs waving goodbye to their relatives who were being paraded through the city streets in trucks on their way to the execution ground. She said when one desperate mother shouted to her son on the truck and raised her hands, Chinese soldiers on a building fired upon her with a machine gun and killed 5-6 Uighurs standing beside her. Some Russians standing nearby saw what happened and shouted “Fascists! Fascists!”
During my stay in Gulja ( Yining ) I visited some 30 Uighur families and met with nearly 100 people. I felt the pain of the Uighur families who lost their sons and daughters in the military crackdown on this peaceful protest. Having been detained and threatened on three occasions, I was able to understand the severity of the situation by experiencing first hand mistreatment at the hands of Chinese military and police.
I am speaking out so that we do not forget those who lost their lives in Gulja ( Yining ) and to call for accountability on the part of the Chinese authorities.
———-_- original report of this story from Amnesty International, 1 February 2007
Related: _- Background of 1997 Gulja (Yining) City Massacre in China
Posted in Activist, Asia, China, City resident, Communist Party, Gulja, Human Rights, Incident, Killing, Law, Life, NW China, News, People, Politics, Report, Social, Speech, World, Xinjiang, Yining, military | Leave a Comment »
Background of 1997 Gulja ( Yining ) City Massacre in China
Posted by chinaview on February 8, 2007
Amnesty International (AI), 1 February 2007-
(10 years ago) On 5 February 1997, dozens of people were killed or seriously injured when the Chinese security forces brutally broke up a peaceful demonstration in the city of Gulja (Yining) in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) of China.
Hundreds, possibly thousands, lost their lives or were seriously injured in the unrest that occurred the following day. Large numbers of people were arrested during the demonstrations and their aftermath. Many detainees were beaten or otherwise tortured. An unknown number remain unaccounted for.
Uighurs are a mainly Muslim ethnic minority who are concentrated primarily in China’s Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR).
Since the 1980s, the Uighurs have been the target of systematic and extensive human rights violations. This includes arbitrary detention and imprisonment, incommunicado detention, and serious restrictions on religious freedom as well as cultural and social rights. Uighur political prisoners have been executed after unfair trials.
In recent years, China has exploited the international “war on terror” to suppress the Uighurs, labelling them “terrorists”, “separatists”, or “religious extremists”.
- extract from Amnesty International’s report here
- more reports about 1997 February Gulja (Yining) city massacre from Amnesty International

Colin, my student, experienced these riots when he was ten.

This is the first part of two parts. Enjoy the reading.
Xinjiang Provence
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