dogu-turkistan-sempozyumu

FREEEAST TURKISTAN SYMPOSIUMThe Chinese media still strictly adheres to the policy of not reflecting thetruth of domestic and international situations in the East Turkistan issue. Due tothe transparency policy that was introduced by China in the 1980s, the oppressivepolicy that China has pursued against the people of East Turkistan has begun tobe reported and to find its place in the international media. For instance:On February 5, 1997, people who were praying in their houses on the holynight of Al Qadr in the city of Gulca in the northwest of East Turkistan were takento military stations, where they were tortured to death; their bodies were thenhanded over to their families. Hearing about this event, people became enragedand poured into the streets. A group consisting of family members and otherpeople marched on the government building to make a complaint about thesehomicides; this group grew as it went. The group placed children and womenin front to demonstrate that they had no intention but to make a complaint tothe government; finally the group arrived at the government building. However,Chinese soldiers opened fire on the group, disregarding the innocent children andwomen in the front. This event quickly escalated and turned into a conflict. YoungUyghurs, with nothing but sticks in their hands, were brutally killed. 9 Furthermore,the Chinese troops conducted operations on all houses in Gulca, and arrested allyoung people -irrespective of whether they had been involved in these events ornot; these were either killed or imprisoned. Some of them have never been heardof again. Due to the fact that the prisons were overflowing at that period, evenschool buildings were turned into prisons. But this was not enough! Some ofthe young people who had been arrested were put into deep-freeze meat storagecontainers or brutally killed. They killed people by freezing them, pouring coldwater over them in weather that was -30 degrees. In addition to this inhumanviolence, they seized and executed young people who had managed to escape tothe neighbouring country, Kazakhstan.Although China took very strict measures to prevent the leakage of the truenature of these events, a foreigner was able to bring video-recordings of what hadhappened to the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek; he sold the videos to Ilgar Alptekin, themanager of the Turkish Airlines Office in Bishkek. Ilgar Alptekin sent the videotapesto Turkey and the Turkish television channel ATV broadcast them in Turkey.Thus, the East Turkistan Issue began to attract the attention of internationalorganisations, such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch in520