China Executes Uighur Activist

BEIJING — China has executed Uighur Muslim activist Ismail Samed on charges of "splitting the Chinese motherland" with rights groups and his lawyer slamming his trial as politically motivated and unfair. "When the body was transferred to us at the cemetery I saw only one bullet hole in his heart," Semed's widow, Buhejer, told the US-funded Radio Free Asia (RFA) on Friday, February 9, Reuters reported. Semed was executed in the far-west Chinese city of Urumqi, capital of the predominantly Muslim region of Xinjiang, at 9:00 am local time Thursday, February 8. He was deported to China from Pakistan in 2003 and was sentenced to death October 31, 2005 by the Urumqi City Intermediate People's Court for "attempting to split the motherland" and "possessing firearms and explosives," Uighur sources told the radio station. Sources close to the case said the charges were based on the allegation that Semed was a founding member of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), a Muslim Uighur movement which Beijing has branded terrorist. China has waged a harsh campaign in recent years against Muslim separatists struggling to set up an independent "East Turkestan" in Xinjiang. The Uighurs are a Turkish-speaking minority of eight million whose traditional homeland lies in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region in north-west China. Xinjiang has been autonomous since 1955 but continues to be the subject of crackdowns by Chinese authorities, who have been accused by rights groups of religious repression against Uighurs in the name of counter-terrorism efforts. Beijing views Xinjiang as an invaluable asset because of its crucial strategic location near Central Asia and its large oil and gas reserves.

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