Xinjiang raid

Last updated
Xinjiang raid
Part of Xinjiang conflict
China-Xinjiang.png
Map showing Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in the People's Republic of China
DateJanuary 5, 2007
Location
Result Chinese raid successful
Belligerents

Flag of the People's Republic of China.svg People's Republic of China

Flag of Jihad.svg East Turkestan Islamic Movement
Commanders and leaders
Ba Yan Unknown
Casualties and losses
1 killed
1 wounded
18 killed
17 captured

The January 2007 Xinjiang raid was carried out on January 5, 2007 by the Chinese police against a suspected East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) training camp in Akto County in the Pamir plateau.

A spokesperson for the Xinjiang Public Security Department said that 18 terror suspects were killed and 17 captured. Those captured were either sentenced to death or life imprisonment. [1] The raid also resulted in the death of one Chinese paramilitary officer Huang Qiang, age 21, and the injury of another officer. Authorities confiscated hand grenades, guns, and makeshift explosives from the site. [2] [3] ETIM is classified by the United Nations as a terrorist organization. [4] [5]

In reaction, many exiled Uyghur leaders quickly questioned the motives behind the raid. Rebiya Kadeer, a Uyghur human rights activist, called for an independent UN investigation into the raid, [5] while Alim Seytoff, executive chairman of the World Uighur Congress, claimed the Chinese government has yet to produce evidence to substantiate the camp's connections to terrorism. In response, Zhao Yongchen, vice head of the Xinjiang counterterrorism forces, reiterated the reality of the camp's terrorist threat. [2] [6] [7] By June 2017, a United States official stated that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was still evaluating the validity of China's terrorism claim, maintaining that there were no terrorist activities by international actors in the country from 2002 to 2007. [1]

See also

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East Turkestan, also East Turkistan, varies in meaning by context and usage. The term was coined in the 19th century by Russian Turkologists including Nikita Bichurin to replace another Western term, Chinese Turkestan, which referred to the Tarim Basin in the southwestern part of Xinjiang during the Qing Dynasty. The medieval Persian toponym "Turkestan" and its derivatives were not, however, used by the local population. The Uyghur name for the Tarim Basin is Altishahr, which means "Six Cities" in Uyghur. Besides, China had since the Han Dynasty had its own name for an overlapping area: the "Western Regions." The parts of this area controlled by China were termed "Xinjiang" starting in the 18th century.

Turkistan Islamic Party

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East Turkestan independence movement East Turkestan independence from China

The East Turkestan independence movement, also known as the Xinjiang independence movement or the Uyghur independence movement, is a political movement that seeks independence for Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, a large and sparsely-populated province-level subdivision of the People's Republic of China (PRC/China) located in the country's northwest, as a homeland for the Uyghur people, who are primarily of Turkic rather than Sinitic ethnic extraction. Within the movement, there is widespread support for the region to be renamed, since "Xinjiang" is seen by independence activists as a colonial name. "East Turkestan" is the most well-known proposed name. "Uyghurstan" is another well-known proposed name.

East Turkestan Liberation Organization

The East Turkestan Liberation Organization (ETLO) was a secessionist Uyghur organization that advocated for an independent Uyghur state named East Turkestan in the Western Chinese province known as Xinjiang. The organization was established in Turkey in 1990 or 1996 to fight against the Chinese government in Xinjiang, a territory in which no ethnicity forms a majority, but is inhabited in order of most populous to least by Uyghur, Han Chinese, Kazakh and other Turkic communities. ETLO is a designated terrorist organization by the governments of China, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan.

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2008 Kashgar attack

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World Uyghur Congress Cultural and political organization

The World Uyghur Congress is an international organization of exiled Uyghur groups that aspires to "represent the collective interest of the Uyghur people" both inside and outside of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China. The World Uyghur Congress describes itself as a nonviolent and peaceful movement that opposes what it considers to be the Chinese occupation of East Turkestan and advocates rejection of totalitarianism, religious intolerance and terrorism as an instrument of policy. The Congress is funded in part by the National Endowment for Democracy or NED of the United States.

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2011 Kashgar attacks

The 2011 Kashgar attacks were a series of knife and bomb attacks in Kashgar, Xinjiang, China on July 30 and 31, 2011. On July 30, two Uyghur men hijacked a truck, killed its driver, and drove into a crowd of pedestrians. They got out of the truck and stabbed six people to death and injured 27 others. One of the attackers was killed by the crowd; the other was brought into custody. On July 31, a chain of two explosions started a fire at a downtown restaurant. A group of armed Uyghur men killed two people inside of the restaurant and four people outside, injuring 15 other people. Police shot five suspects dead, detained four, and killed two others who initially escaped arrest.

The 2012 Yecheng attack occurred on February 28, 2012 in Yecheng, Xinjiang, a remote town on China's border with Pakistan. Details of the attack are disputed: according to Chinese government reports and court documents, at around 6 p.m. that day, a group of eight Uyghur men led by religious extremist Abudukeremu Mamuti attacked pedestrians with axes and knives on Happiness Road. Local police fought with the attackers, ultimately killing all and capturing Mamuti. State-run media reported that one police officer died and four police were injured, while 15 pedestrians died from Mamuti's assault and 14 more civilians were injured. Chinese officials characterized the event as a "terrorist attack."

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On 26 June 2013, 35 people died in the riots, including 22 civilians, two police officers and eleven attackers.

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On the early morning of Wednesday, 30 July 2014, Juma Tahir, the imam of China's largest mosque, the Id Kah Mosque in northwestern Kashgar, was stabbed to death by three young male Uyghur extremists.

Xinjiang re-education camps Chinese internment camps in Xinjiang

The Xinjiang re-education camps, officially called Vocational Education and Training Centers by the Government of China, are internment camps operated by the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region government and its CCP committee. Human Rights Watch claims that they have been used to indoctrinate Uyghurs and other Muslims since 2017 as part of a "people's war on terror," a policy announced in 2014. The camps have been criticized by many countries and human rights organizations for alleged human rights abuses and mistreatment, with some even alleging genocide.

Critics of China's treatment of Uyghurs have accused the Chinese government of propagating a policy of sinicization in Xinjiang in the 21st century, calling this policy an ethnocide or a cultural genocide of Uyghurs, with some activists and human rights experts calling it a genocide.

References

  1. 1 2 Kan, Shirley (2009). U.S.-China Counterterrorism Cooperation: Issues for U.S. Policy. Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service. p. 17. ISBN   9781437919363.
  2. 1 2 "UN urged to probe killing of Chinese Muslims". The News . January 11, 2007. Archived from the original on February 20, 2008.
  3. "China 'anti-terror' raid kills 18". BBC News. 8 January 2007.
  4. Roul, Animesh (May 17, 2019). "Al-Qaeda and Islamic State Reinvigorating East Turkistan Jihad". Jamestown. Retrieved 2019-08-21.
  5. 1 2 Guo, Rongxing (2015). China's Spatial (Dis)integration: Political Economy of the Interethnic Unrest in Xinjiang. Waltham, MA: Chandos Publishing. p. 46. ISBN   9780081003879.
  6. "China crushes Xinjiang `terror camp'". Taipei Times. January 10, 2007.
  7. Poch, Rafael (June 20, 2007). "Un incidente en el Pamir". La Vanguardia (in Spanish).