dogu-turkistan-sempozyumu

FREEEAST TURKISTAN SYMPOSIUMregion, bribery also cripples other people in the region. Bribery is prevalent inmany cases, including transactions in government offices, being released fromdetention, finding jobs or getting a passport. No transactions can be conductedwithout bribery, and this makes daily life even harder to live.VIII. Lack of public orderLack of public order, which deteriorated in particular after the events of 5July, 2009, is one of the most serious problems in East Turkistan today. Incidencessuch as arrests and night raids, sudden disappearances, and beatings inflicted byunknown assailants have already been reported. Such incidents are mostly conductedby the police. Things have deteriorated since the events of 5 July, 2009when ethnic conflicts flared up. It has become harder to define whether theseevents are carried out by government officials or ethnic groups. For instance, ayoung Uyghur called Mehmet Tursun Taş was killed after being tortured duringan interrogation in Gülbağ Police Station in the Yarken district of East Turkistanin 2006. His wife, Dilber Tohti, and his father, Tohti Hoşur, forwarded their complaintto the prosecutor’s office and even to the higher court in Beijing. However,these intensive efforts did not yield satisfactory results and the perpetrators ofthe torture continued their work in their offices, as if nothing had happened.Another incident took place in the Karakaş district of East Turkistan in January2008 when the police conducted a raid on the house of a merchant calledMütellif Hacı, claiming that he had provided material support for prisoners. Hewas taken to the police station, where he was tortured to death, and his body washanded back to his family on the condition that the family did not tell anyoneabout the incidence. Another incident took place only one and a half months agoin Urumchi.A man from East Turkistan reports: I have a copy of the court decision concerningan individual. A young man called Ablet Memet came to Urumchi fromKashgar to work in the restaurant of his relatives on 16.10.2009. The day afterhis arrival, the young man was arrested by the police, accused of “pricking a HanChinese with a needle” near the train station, and he was quickly sentenced toeight years in prison. Police officers went to the house of this young man and402