Beijing: China has formally indicted Uighur scholar and rights advocate Ilham Tohti on charges of separatism – a crime that carries a potential death sentence – even as a fresh outbreak of deadly violence wracked the turbulent far-western region of Xinjiang.
Deadly clashes involving Uighurs, a predominantly Muslim ethnic minority, have escalated despite an unprecedented pledge by Chinese President Xi Jinping in March to deliver a “crushing blow” to terrorism in the region through a “strike-first” strategy, after a string of grisly bombing and knifing attacks in Xinjiang and other parts of China.
Government-appointed head of the largest mosque in China Jume Tahir was found murdered on Wednesday morning, according to Radio Free Asia.
The report, citing numerous eyewitnesses and local officials, said the imam was found lying in a pool of blood outside the prayer house of the 600-year-old Id Kah mosque, in the Silk Road city of Kashgar.
“There was a body in the mosque covered in a white sheet,” one witness told Fairfax Media. “They took the body outside through a side door and under heavy security.”
It came just two days after one of the worst clashes in Xinjiang since the bloody Urumqi riots in 2009.
The official Xinhua news agency said police shot dead “dozens” of knife-wielding assailants who had stormed a police station and government offices in Elishku township, in Yarkand county (known as Shache in Chinese), on Monday morning, during the Eid festival marking the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. An unspecified number of civilians and police were also killed and injured.
But exile groups immediately disputed the official version of events, saying security forces opened fire on a group protesting government restrictions on the celebration of Ramadan.
Other witnesses told Fairfax Media that internet access in Kashgar was throttled on Wednesday morning, and the area around Id Kah mosque was cordoned off by several roadblocks. The security situation had returned to normal by Wednesday afternoon.
While the motivation for killing Mr Tahir was not immediately clear, the veteran imam was seen as being close to the Communist Party and had often been cited in Chinese state media as being critical of ethnic Uighurs waging violence in their homeland.
“He has turned the mosque into a Communist Party propaganda school,” a Kashgar teacher told Radio Free Asia.
China routinely attributes responsibility for the attacks, which have killed more than 200 people in the past year, to terrorists and separatists fighting for Uighur independence.
And despite Mr Tohti’s reputation as an outspoken but moderate Uighur rights advocate, the Communist Party has accused him of being a separatist figurehead, using his website and his position as a lecturer in Beijing to inspire students to turn to violent means to protest government rule.
“He is not charged with incitement, but of directly splitting the regime,” his lawyer Li Fangping said, noting prosecutors had opted for the most serious charge possible. “What he has done is to advocate for human right of Uighurs, and he completely denies such charges: he neither said nor did anything to advocate for Uighur independence.”
Human Rights Watch said the “decision to indict on such a serious charge a man like Ilham Tohti, who is known for trying to bridge divides”, showed how far China’s human rights had deteriorated in the past months.
"To accuse him of being a separatist is an unmistakable signal of the political hardening on the Uighur issue," the organisation's Nicholas Bequelin told The New York Times. "It signifies that China is burning all bridges with moderate voices in respect to its ethnic policies."
Neither Mr Tohti’s family nor his lawyers were directly notified of his indictment, which was posted online.
“We received no notification at all, I only knew about this last night,” said Mr Tohti’s wife Guzailni Nu’er, who has been under constant surveillance in her Beijing apartment. “I’ve been feeling very ill since and I don’t know what to do. I’m just waiting for the lawyer."
with Sanghee Liu
