WUC Newsletter Page 1 NEWSLETTER NO.5 D E C EMBER 2010 TOP STORY Uyghur Seeks Justice for Discrimination MEDIA WORK WUC Online TV Launched WUC ‐ UNPO Conference Report “Uyghurs Call for Dialogue with China” Published FEATURED UAA Press Release on Biilingual Education in China WUC Press Release on Inclusion of Meshrep in UNESCO ´s List ARTICLES WUC Turkish Website Launched Crackdown UAA Press Release on Nobel Peace Prize for Liu Xiaobo UNPO Manifesto: International Human Rights Day 2010 Launched in Xinjiang PAST EVENTS Amnesty International USA 2010 Western Regional Conference Kurban Bayrami celebrated by East Turkestan Union in Europe Turkey‐China WUC Representative in Berlin at Human Rights Conference WUC Special Representative to the EU at One World Film Festival, Bratislava Military Rebiya Kadeer in Switzerland and Liechtenstein Exercises: Rebiya Kadeer at Tibet House in Barcelona What Do They Uyghur Meshrep at Tropentheater in Amsterdam WUC and East Turkestan Union in Europe: Joint Demonstration in Munich Mean for the Uyghur Groups at the Bazaar of Cultures, Munich Uyghurs? WUC Staff Members at Seminar on Integration and Nationaal Security, Kochel am See UPCOMING EVENTS WUC with UNPO at UN Forum on Minority Isssues, Geneva, Switzerland UNPO and MRG Bring Discussion Of Minorities and Natural Resources to the UN Concerts of the Caravan “A breakfast in Kashgar prolongs life”, Bochum WUC Appeal on Forcible Return of 20 Uyghur Asylum‐Seekers to China by Cambodia LATEST NEWS AND REPORTS International Media Articles and Reports on Uyghur Related Issues WUC Newsletter Page 2 Uyghur Seeks Justice for Discrimination 01 December 2010 , by Radio Free Asia, available at: http://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/discrimination‐12012010162044.html A Uyghur woman plans to sue a Han “national unity” at her factory, where storeowner for ethnic prejudice according supervisors warned that workers could be to Chinese law. thrown in jail if they spread ethnic hatred. A Uyghur factory worker from “[At the store] I was surrounded by more northwestern China said she was insulted than 30 salesmen, all of them working for and humiliated by Han Chinese and wants [the woman], who began insulting me. My to raise the larger issue of alleged daughter and sister were crying, and there discrimination of her community with the were no Uyghurs at the shopping center,” United Nations in what could be the first she said. case of its kind. Goher said she called the police as the Goher Memet, a 35‐year‐old employee of storeowner continued to berate her, the Xinjiang Bayi Iron and Steel Co. in the belittling the Uyghurs as “stepchildren of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous capital of our state.” When police came, the Urumqi, said she also planned to sue the storeowner continued to insult her. The woman who insulted her and refused her police told her that the woman was venting Goher Memet (RFA) service. her frustration over the riots, she said. She travelled to Beijing recently for the "I asked if it was okay for me to tell [the second time to raise the issue with the storeowner] to leave Xinjiang, but [the authorities since the incident which police officer] said, ‘No, you would be occurred several months after ethnic riots thrown in jail.’” rocked Urumqi in July last year. The July 5, Goher said she made an official report to 2009 violence left some 200 people dead, the police about the incident and that according to the Chinese government’s factory officials advised her not to file any tally. lawsuit. She said an official of the “I plan to go to the United Nations’ human Communist Party of China who acts as a rights office in Beijing and the U.S. liaison officer for the factory did not keep embassy’s human rights office. I want to his pledge to close down the woman’s call on them to pay attention to the ethnic store and cancel her license. situation in Xinjiang and to help China solve Broken promises its ethnic problems properly,” Goher said. The storeowner also refused a proposal by Goher said that not long after last year’s the factory's security department to riots had subsided, she was in a store in apologize for the insults, she said. Urumqi asking to have a pair of shoes refitted when the store owner began to When Goher made her first trip to Beijing insult her. in July this year to raise the issue with the central authorities, factory officials came to The woman barged in, "saying, 'You beggar the Chinese capital and assured her again Uyghurs killed many of us on July 5. I don’t that they would punish the woman. But want to see you. I am the owner of the when they returned to Urumqi, "they store and you should leave. All you Uyghurs broke their promise again.” should leave Xinjiang … otherwise, all of you will die.’” According to China’s criminal law, those who promote ethnic hatred or discriminate 'Stepchildren' against other ethnic groups are subject to Just before she went to the shoe store, three to 10 years in prison if convicted. Goher said she had attended a meeting on WUC Newsletter Page 3 City‐ and regional‐level ethnic affairs also felt slighted by the attack and want departments and petitioner departments all authorities to take Goher’s case against the refused telephone interviews about Goher’s storeowner. case. Ilham Tohti, an outspoken Uyghur professor But factory officials acknowledged that she at Beijing’s Central Nationalities University, had been subjected to racial discrimination said he believes Goher is the first to by the shopowner. publicize such a sensitive but common case in China. “Yes, that is true. The Han Chinese businesswoman attacked Goher Memet,” “I believe that her voice represents the said Seypulla, a staff member with the Uyghur voice for today’s ethnic situation in factory’s petitioner office, though he Xinjiang.” refused to comment further. She faced discrimination “typical of the Hapiz Niyaz, deputy secretary of the post‐July 5 era of ethnic relations in the factory's party committee also agreed that region,” he said. the incident constituted racial harassment. “Theoretically, ethnic discrimination is “Yes, the attack Goher Memet encountered illegal according to Chinese law, but in is a kind of ethnic discrimination. All the practice, ethnic discrimination cases are not Uyghurs in the factory and neighborhood accepted by the court in our judicial were deeply harmed by the attack. The system." businesswoman should be punished by law, but I’m not sure why she still has gone unpunished,” he said. Reported by Shohret Hoshur for RFA’s Uyghur service. Translated by Shohret “I hope that our legal departments handle Hoshur. Written in English by Joshua Lipes. the case properly and with justice.” Copyright © 1998‐2010 Radio Free Asia. All Slighted by attack rights reserved A Uyghur worker, who asked to remain anonymous, said many of his co‐workers WUC Newsletter Page 4 Crackdown Launched in Xinjiang 27 November 2010, by Radio Free Asia, available at: http://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/language‐10272010181614.html Chinese authorities launch a fresh drive against 'separatism' in the northwestern region. Authorities in China's troubled targeting the culture of Uyghurs, a Central northwestern region of Xinjiang are holding Asian Turkic‐speaking ethnic group, many of more than 20 people in a new crackdown whom are unhappy under Chinese rule. on separatism mainly targeting the region's "The Chinese government has launched a Muslim Uyghur ethnic minority, an exiled clean‐up campaign targeting audio‐visual group said on Friday. media being sold in the region," Raxit said. This winter's "strike hard" campaign began He said the campaign was being in mid‐November in Aqchi Nahiyisi, in coordinated by the Ili prefecture news and southern Xinjiang's Kizilsu Kyrgyz publishing bureau and the local police. autonomous prefecture, according to Dilxat "They have confiscated more than 20,000 Raxit, spokesman for the Munich‐based video CD disks which the government says World Uyghur Congress. are illegal," Raxit said. "They are mostly focusing on those in the Uyghur language." "Nearly 100 people have been detained," Raxit said. "Some of them are still being Propaganda detained under criminal detention," he said, He said four Uyghurs had been charged by adding that several had also been freed. national security police with the possession Raxit said that more than 20 people were and recording of illegal CDs containing being held under criminal charges, while at "overseas enemy propaganda." "Five people least 10 had been freed on bail pending have also been formally detained for court hearings. "Others are still being held possession, recording, and distribution of in the detention center because they religious education videos," Raxit said. refused to pay fines," he said. A Han Chinese resident of Ili said that An officer who answered the phone at the authorities have not clarified exactly what is county police department declined to permissible in the lyrics of Uyghur songs, comment. "You will have to ask my and that they are simply banning those they superiors," he said. "Those are the rules. think might be problematic. They know what is happening." "The Communist Party has decreed a whole Surveillance bunch of guidelines of stuff which isn't allowed, and then confiscated them," the A resident of Aqchi said police had stepped resident said."It is all being decided entirely up routine patrols and surveillance in the by them," he added. county town in recent weeks. "Aqchi has a reputation, and it is always subjected to An employee who answered the phone at a tight controls," the resident said. "There are bookshop in Ili prefecture said the not so many people out and about at the government has always confiscated illegal moment, it's very plain to see." publications, however.