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An inventory obtained and partially verified by the AP cites the names of greater than 10,000 Uyghurs despatched to jail in simply Konasheher county alone, certainly one of dozens in southern Xinjiang. In recent times, China has waged a brutal crackdown on the Uyghurs, a largely Muslim minority, which it has described as a battle on terror.
The checklist is by far the most important to emerge to this point with the names of imprisoned Uyghurs, reflecting the sheer measurement of a Chinese language authorities marketing campaign that swept an estimated million or extra individuals into internment camps and prisons. It additionally confirms what households and rights teams have mentioned for years: China is counting on a system of long-term incarceration to maintain the Uyghurs in examine, wielding the legislation as a weapon of repression.
Beneath searing worldwide criticism, Chinese language officers introduced the closure in 2019 of short-term, extrajudicial internment camps the place Uyghurs had been thrown in with out fees. Nonetheless, though consideration centered on the camps, hundreds of Uyghurs nonetheless languish for years and even many years in jail on what consultants say are trumped-up fees of terrorism.
Uyghur farmer Rozikari Tohti was referred to as a soft-spoken, family-loving man with three kids and never the slightest curiosity in faith. So his cousin, Mihrigul Musa, was shocked to find Tohti had been thrown into jail for 5 years for “non secular extremism.”
“By no means did I feel he can be arrested,” mentioned Musa, who now lives in exile in Norway. “If you happen to noticed him, you’ll really feel the identical means. He’s so earnest.”
From the checklist, Musa came upon Tohti’s youthful brother Ablikim Tohti additionally was sentenced to seven years on fees of “gathering the general public to disturb social order.” Tohti’s next-door neighbour, a farmer referred to as Nurmemet Dawut, was sentenced to 11 years on the identical fees in addition to “selecting quarrels and frightening troubles.”
Konasheher county is typical of rural southern Xinjiang, and greater than 267,000 individuals reside there. The jail sentences throughout the county had been for 2 to 25 years, with a median of 9 years, the checklist exhibits. Whereas the individuals on the checklist had been principally arrested in 2017, based on Uyghurs in exile, their sentences are so lengthy that the overwhelming majority would nonetheless be in jail.
These swept up got here from all walks of life, and included males, girls, younger individuals and the aged. That they had just one factor in frequent: They had been all Uyghurs.
Consultants say it clearly exhibits individuals had been focused merely for being Uyghur – a conclusion vehemently denied by Chinese language authorities. Xinjiang spokesman Elijan Anayat mentioned sentences had been carried out in accordance with the legislation.
“We are going to by no means particularly goal particular areas, ethnic teams, religions, a lot much less the Uyghurs,” Anayat mentioned. “We are going to by no means fallacious the great, nor launch the unhealthy.”
The checklist was obtained by Xinjiang scholar Gene Bunin from an nameless supply who described themselves as a member of China’s Han Chinese language majority “against the Chinese language authorities’s insurance policies in Xinjiang.”
It was handed to the AP by Abduweli Ayup, an exiled Uyghur linguist in Norway.
The AP authenticated it by means of interviews with eight Uyghurs who recognised 194 individuals on the checklist, in addition to authorized notices, recordings of telephone calls with Chinese language officers and checks of tackle, birthdays and identification numbers.
The checklist doesn’t embrace individuals with typical felony fees akin to murder or theft. Moderately, it focuses on offenses associated to terrorism, non secular extremism or obscure fees historically used towards political dissidents, akin to “selecting quarrels and frightening troubles.” This implies the true variety of individuals imprisoned is nearly actually increased.
However even at a conservative estimate, Konasheher county’s imprisonment price is greater than 10 instances increased than that of the US, one of many world’s main jailers, based on Division of Justice statistics. It is also greater than 30 instances increased than for China as a complete, based on state statistics from 2013, the final time such figures had been launched.
Darren Byler, an skilled on Xinjiang’s mass incarceration system, mentioned most arrests had been arbitrary and out of doors the legislation, with individuals detained for having kinfolk overseas or downloading sure cellular phone functions.
“It’s actually outstanding,” Byler mentioned. “In no different location have we seen total populations of individuals be described as terrorists or seen as terrorists.”
The crackdown kicked into excessive gear in 2017, after a string of knifings and bombings by a small handful of Uyghur militants. The Chinese language authorities defended the mass detentions as each lawful and essential to fight terrorism.
In 2019, Xinjiang officers declared the short-term detention camps closed, and mentioned that each one of whom they described as “trainees” had “graduated.” Visits by Related Press journalists to 4 former camp websites verify that they had been shuttered or transformed into different services.
However the prisons stay. Xinjiang went on a prison-building spree in tandem with the crackdown, and even because the camps closed, the prisons expanded. At the least just a few camp websites had been transformed into facilities for incarceration.
China is utilizing the legislation “as a fig leaf of legality” partly to try to deflect worldwide criticism about holding Uyghurs, mentioned Jeremy Daum, a felony legislation skilled at Yale College’s Paul Tsai China Middle.
The secretive nature of the fees towards these imprisoned is a crimson flag, consultants say. Though China makes authorized data simply accessible in any other case, nearly 90% of felony data in Xinjiang are usually not public. The handful which have leaked present that individuals are being charged with “terrorism” for acts akin to warning colleagues towards watching porn and swearing, or praying in jail.
Abduweli Ayup, the Uyghur exile who handed the checklist to the AP, has intently documented the continuing repression of his neighborhood. However this checklist particularly floored him: On it had been neighbors, a cousin, a highschool trainer.
“I had collapsed,” Ayup mentioned. “I had instructed different individuals’s tales …. and now that is me telling my very own story from my childhood.”
The widely-admired trainer, Adil Tursun, was the one one in the highschool in Toquzaq who may train Uyghur college students in Chinese language. He was a Communist Social gathering member, and yearly his college students had the perfect chemistry take a look at scores within the city.
The names of Tursun and others on the checklist made no sense to Ayup as a result of they had been thought-about mannequin Uyghurs.
“The names of the crimes, spreading extremist ideas, separatism … these fees are absurd,” he mentioned.
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