In recent years, Chinese Communist authorities have seen a surge in sentencing cases against Uighurs and other Muslims in Xinjiang through the formal judicial process, and the average length of sentences has risen, according to a new report released Feb. 24 by the international human rights organization Human Rights Watch. Yet the charges against these individuals are vague, and even actions such as sending money to relatives overseas and selling cigarettes have been found by authorities to be in violation of the law.
Human Rights Watch’s latest report shows that 250,000 people have been convicted or imprisoned through formal judicial proceedings in the Xinjiang region since the Anti-Terrorism Law came into effect in 2016 and the Chinese government escalated and expanded its repressive counterterrorism policies. Analyzing the more than 60 cases collected, HRW found that these cases are very different in nature from those illegally sent to detention camps, and that many of those convicted or imprisoned did not commit any criminal acts.
Even through the formal judicial process, many of the ordinary people inside Xinjiang’s prisons were convicted for their livelihoods and religious beliefs, said Wang Songlian, a senior researcher in HRW’s China Department, in a statement.
Number of Sentenced People in Xinjiang Surges, Average Sentence Rises
The number of people sentenced in Xinjiang has increased sharply since 2017, according to official Chinese statistics obtained by Human Rights Watch. Xinjiang courts sentenced more than 99,000 people in 2017, and the number of people sentenced rose to more than 133,000 in 2018. Although data for 2019 has not yet been released, the Xinjiang Victims Database, a non-governmental organization, said it expects the number of people sentenced in 2019 to be the same as in the previous two years, based on more than 8,000 documented cases of detention.
Official Chinese data also show a sharp increase in the number of people sentenced to long prison terms, according to the HRW analysis. Prior to 2017, the number of people sentenced to prison terms of five years or more accounted for about 10.8 percent of the total; in 2017, the share increased sharply to 87 percent. At the same Time, data from the Xinjiang Victims Database show that 312 people were sentenced to an average of 12.5 years in prison as part of the CCP’s expanding counterterrorism campaign, not including the six people sentenced to Life imprisonment.
Teng Biao, a U.S.-based Chinese legal scholar, told the station that the dramatic increase in the number of people imprisoned in Xinjiang after 2017 is not in line with the law of social crime, and the reason behind it is that the CCP is using minority policies and judicial procedures to increase its crackdown on Uighurs and other Muslims in Xinjiang: “This is completely contrary to the law of crime, the number of crimes in a place every year is basically The number of crimes in a place is basically the same every year, and it is not likely to change several times. This is clearly the CCP’s decision making (behind the scenes) against ethnic minorities, and is a total crime against humanity.”
Report: Authorities are fabricating charges and convictions to expand crackdowns
The individual cases highlighted by Human Rights Watch in the report show that the Chinese Communist authorities are further tightening their grip on the Xinjiang region. Jin Huaide, a Hui Muslim man, was sentenced to life in prison for “splitting the state” for organizing numerous trips abroad to study the Quran, inviting overseas religious figures to Xinjiang, and organizing religious gatherings. Although there is no public evidence that Jin Huaide’s actions constituted a crime, the local court characterized him as a threat to national security for “promoting the infiltration of foreign religious forces in China.
In addition, six controversial cases provided by the Xinjiang Victims Database show arbitrary convictions and harsh sentencing by judicial authorities. Nebijan Ghoja Ehmet, an ethnic Uighur, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for telling others how to distinguish halal Food. Hui man Huang Shike was sentenced to fifteen years in prison for establishing a Muslim worship WeChat group and teaching the Quran online. A Hui man, Nie Shigang, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for “aiding terrorist activities” for helping more than 100 Uighurs send money to relatives overseas. Although the ruling was reversed on appeal, he was eventually sentenced to five years in prison for “money laundering. In addition, Serikzhan Adilhan, an ethnic Kazakh man, was sentenced to three and a half years in prison for operating an illegal tobacco business.
According to information on 51 other cases, most of the Uighurs and Kazakhs faced sentences for vague charges such as “inciting racial hatred,” “provoking trouble” and “watching or listening to extremist content. The majority of Uyghurs and Kazakhs face penalties for vague charges such as “inciting racial hatred,” “provoking trouble” and “watching or listening to extremist content.
Teng Biao argued that sentencing minority groups through the judicial process is fundamentally different from holding them in detention camps. He said that the Chinese Communist Party primarily brainwashes Xinjiang Uighurs and other ethnic minorities held in detention camps to purge them of their ethnic, religious and cultural identity. Those “hardcore elements” are seen as a threat to regime legitimacy and social stability, and face the same political repression as other rights activists. “The whole crime of endangering state security is very vague. In practice, these crimes are used against human rights defenders and dissidents. From that point of view, such crimes are political persecution. But the difference in Xinjiang is that the scope of application is very broad, and in other places such cases are usually major cases or of a certain visibility, and Xinjiang is arbitrarily amputating this charge in very large numbers.”
Human Rights Watch said survivors of detention camps in Xinjiang between 2016 and 2018 generally said they were tortured to extract confessions and denied the right to meet with Family members and lawyers.
Wang Songlian argued that the international community has historically expressed concern about the massive detention camps set up by the Chinese Communist authorities in Xinjiang, while paying less attention to the detention and imprisonment of Muslims in Xinjiang through the Chinese Communist Party’s judicial process. She called for “[the international community] should increase pressure on the Chinese government to conduct an independent investigation in Xinjiang. This is the best hope for rescuing all those who have been unjustly detained or imprisoned.”
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