Reuters：China executes two for pre-Olympics attack in Xinjiang

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China executes two for pre-Olympics attack in Xinjiang
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE53810P20090409

BEIJING (Reuters) – China executed two minority Uighurs in restive far-west Xinjiang Thursday after a court convicted them over a deadly attack on police in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics.

Abdurahman Azat, 34, and Kurbanjan Hemit, 29, were found guilty of a "terrorist attack on a frontier city's border police that left 17 dead," Xinhua news agency said. The attack came despite tightened security ahead of the Summer Games last August.

Almost half of Xinjiang's 20 million people are Uighur, a largely Muslim group with a culture and language close to other Turkic parts of central Asia. Many Uighurs resent controls imposed by Beijing and an inflow of Han Chinese migrants.

The attackers rammed a truck into dozens of police on a morning training run on August 4 in the oasis city of Kashgar, following up their attack with explosives, a home-made gun and knives, state-run media reported at the time.

China had warned of unrest by groups seeking to exploit the world's attention on China in the run-up to the hugely successful Beijing Olympics, which in the end passed off without incident.

The Kashgar court said the two men had "carried out the terrorist attack on August 4 to sabotage the Beijing Olympic Games," Xinhua reported. Their execution was "publicized" at a meeting of some 4,000 officials and residents in a local stadium.

Dilxat Raxit, a spokesman for the Europe-based World Uyghur Congress, said Hemit had been badly beaten while in custody and was unable to walk during his trial.

"There was no chance for their families to see them, and no lawyer at all," Raxit said, adding that the bodies of the executed men had not been returned to their families.

"This shows the bitterness Uighurs live under in China."

Chinese officials have said Uighur militants seeking an independent "East Turkestan" are among the biggest threats to the country's stability, a key issue ahead of the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic on October 1.

The Xinjiang regional governor, Nuer Baikeli, told reporters in Beijing last month that violence in Afghanistan and recent militant attacks in India and Pakistan showed his region had reason to fear militants.

But human rights groups and Uighur independence activists say Beijing grossly exaggerates the threat to justify harsh controls.
Wednesday, China said two people had been sentenced to death over riots in Tibet's regional capital Lhasa last year. China's crackdown on the violence
sparked protests that interrupted parts of the international leg of the Olympic torch relay.

(Reporting by Chris Buckley; Editing by Nick Macfie and Dean Yates)

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AFP：China executes two for Xinjiang attack
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090409/wl_asia_afp/chinaunrestxinjiang

Thu Apr 9, 2:54 am ET


Thu Apr 9, 5:18 AM ET
Chinese police stand guard during the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games in Xinjiang's famed Silk Road city of Kashgar. China has executed two Uighurs in the restive northwestern region for a "terrorist" attack on border police that took place before last year's Olympic Games, state media has said.(AFP/File/Peter Parks)

BEIJING (AFP) – China executed two Uighurs in the restive northwestern Xinjiang region for a "terrorist" attack on border police that took place before last year's Olympic Games, state media said Thursday.

The two members of China's predominantly Muslim Uighur minority were put to death in the city of Kashgar, where the attack that left 17 dead and another 15 injured took place, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

The August 4 attack was the worst in a wave of unrest in remote Xinjiang ahead of, and during, the Olympics that left dozens of people dead and that China blamed on separatist militants from the northwest region.

The two men's execution was announced by a court in Kashgar to 4,000 local officials and residents, Xinhua said.

The court was not immediately available for comment.

The men -- Abdurahman Azat, 33, and Kurbanjan Hemit, 28 -- were sentenced to death in December.

A previous Xinhua report said they drove a truck at a group of 70 police officers and then assaulted them with explosives and knives.

Chinese officials previously said the attackers were carrying documents advocating "holy war" and linked them to the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, listed by China and the United Nations as a terrorist organisation.

Xinjiang, a vast area that borders Central Asia, has about 8.3 million Uighurs, and many of them say they have for decades suffered under Chinese political and religious persecution.

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AFP：China executes two over pre-Olympic 'terrorism'
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090409/wl_asia_afp/chinaunrestxinjiangrightsoly2008

by Karl Malakunas Karl Malakunas – 1 hr 28 mins ago

BEIJING (AFP) – China executed two Muslim men in its far northwest on Thursday for a "terrorist" attack that was aimed at sabotaging last year's Olympics and left 17 policemen dead, state media reported.

The two members of China's Muslim Uighur minority group were put to death in the famed old Silk Road city of Kashgar, where the attack took place, Xinhua news agency reported.

The August 4 incident was the most serious in a wave of unrest in China's remote Xinjiang region ahead of, and during the Beijing Olympics, leaving dozens of people dead.

China blamed the violence on separatist militants from Xinjiang who were wanting to use the global spotlight of the Olympics to raise awareness for their independence cause.


Xinjiang, a vast area that borders Afghanistan and Pakistan, has about 8.3 million Turkic-speaking Uighurs, many of whom say they have for decades suffered Chinese political and religious persecution.

The men executed -- Abdurahman Azat, 34, and Kurbanjan Hemit, 29 -- were sentenced to death in December after being convicted of carrying out the attack with the intention of trying to "sabotage" the Olympics, Xinhua reported.

Xinhua did not say how they were executed but in China the method is typically a bullet to the back of the head or lethal injection.

It said court officials made the execution announcement in front of 4,000 people at a stadium in Kashgar.

Chinese officials previously said the two were carrying documents advocating "holy war" that linked them to the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, listed by China and the United Nations as a terrorist organisation.

Two short-lived East Turkestan republics emerged in Xinjiang in the 1930s and 1940s, at a time when central government control in China was weakened by civil war and Japanese invasion.

On August 4 last year the pair drove a truck at a group of 70 police officers and then attacked them with explosives, machetes and knives, before being overpowered and arrested at the scene.

In a well-planned attack, the men were dressed as police, according to foreign eyewitnesses AFP spoke with in Xinjiang at the time.

Analysts said the violence across Xinjiang in August was the worst there for years and was partly triggered by Uighur separatists wanting to raise publicity ahead of the Olympics.

However, Xinjiang is thousands of kilometres from Beijing and no terrorist attacks directly threatened the Games or the Chinese capital.

This year marks 60 years since China's People's Liberation Army entered Xinjiang and implemented what it called a "peaceful liberation" of the region, but advocates of independence for the area view the move as an invasion.

While the Chinese government is looking to celebrate the anniversary, it has warned separatists are planning more attacks.

"The (security) situation will be more severe, the task more arduous and the struggle more fierce in the region this year," Nur Bekri, chairman of the Xinjiang regional government, said last month.
"It's a time of celebration for Xinjiang people but hostile forces will not give up such an opportunity to destroy it."  The US State Department in February said repression of Uighurs in Xinjiang worsened last year.  "The government tightly controlled the practice of Islam, and official repression of Uighur Muslims in the (region) increased," it said in a human rights report for 2008.
China arrested almost 1,300 people for terrorism, religious extremism or other state security charges in the region last year, Chinese state press reported recently.  China's foreign ministry declined to comment specifically on Thursday's executions, other than to defend the legal system.
"I can guarantee you that the local authorities always handle these kind of cases according to the law," ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said.

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AP：China executes 2 for deadly attack on police
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090409/ap_on_re_as/as_china_executions

Thu Apr 9, 3:30 am ET

BEIJING – China executed two people Thursday for what a court described as an attempt to sabotage the Beijing Olympics with an attack in the far-west region of Xinjiang that killed 17 police, state media reported.

The two were sentenced in December after being convicted of intentional homicide and illegally producing guns, ammunition and explosives, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. It gave no additional details.

They were found guilty of carrying out a terrorist attack to "sabotage" the Beijing Olympic Games, Xinhua reported earlier.

The Aug. 4, 2008 attack, four days before the start of the Olympics, took place in the ancient Silk Road city of Kashgar near the border with Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Two men stole a truck and rammed it into a group of police on their morning jog. The men continued attacking with homemade bombs and knives, killing the officers and wounding 15 others.

The attackers were Abdurahman Azat, 33, a vegetable peddler, and Kurbanjan Hemit, 28, a taxi driver, both of Kashgar, Xinhua reported earlier.

Before the attack, they wrote a letter saying they had to wage "holy war," and their mission was more important than their lives and mothers, Xinhua quoted a local Communist Party official as saying in August.

Chinese authorities say militants among the Uighurs — Turkic-speaking Muslims — are leading a violent Islamic separatist movement in Xinjiang and are seeking to set up an independent state in the Central Asian border province.

Critics accuse Beijing of using claims of terrorism as an excuse to crack down on peaceful pro-independence sentiment and expressions of Uighur identity.

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