dogu-turkistan-sempozyumu

FREEEAST TURKISTAN SYMPOSIUMthose who have made religion part of their jobs have done so thanks to their skills.For instance, when one of the five twelve-year old children who had been arrestedbecause they had learnt how to read the Holy Qur’an in November 1999escaped, his family was arrested, tortured and told that they would not be releasedunless their child surrendered. Another incident took place in Hotan on 28 October1999. The imam of the Oybağ Mosque, Mehmet Ali Hodja, was arrestedbecause he was not preaching to the community in keeping with the CommunistParty line; later he was heavily fined and relieved from his post.Muslims in East Turkistan are sometimes not allowed to go on Hajj. In 1999,the passports of 1,200 Muslim people who wanted to go on Hajj from EastTurkistan were seized by the Chinese police as they were getting ready to leave;122 elderly Muslim people were arrested because they objected to this.Such practices by the Chinese administration are in violation not only of thefundamental right to practice religion, as well as other human rights and liberties,but also in contravention of the article in the Chinese constitution which statesthat any Chinese citizen is free to believe in whatever faith they like. However,because of this oppressive regime, nobody can object to such treatment. In fact,the Chinese government is using Islam as a tool to further develop her relationshipswith Muslim countries.III. Violations in the field of justiceWhile the world is making significant progress towards democracy, the Chinesejudicial system in East Turkistan is unfortunately regressing. Even today,there are some practices in the judicial system in East Turkistan which are juststrange; for example, the owner of a radio station was committed to life imprisonmentbecause he listened to foreign broadcasts fifty years ago, during the Mao era.Innocent people are sentenced to life imprisonment or executed in keeping witharbitrary death penalties; their so-called crimes are groundless accusations whichare not based on concrete evidence. Unlike the courts in democratic countries,the courts in East Turkistan do not function independently, but rather act in linewith the political goals of the Chinese Communist party. Therefore, the courtcases of people who have been sentenced to death are held very quickly and the398