Islam in World Cultures: Comparative Perspectives - Islamic Books ...

1 7 6Islam i n World Cult u r e shabiyya” in the region), such as the Taliban in Afghanistan, have had amongthe Uyghur.Alleged incursions by Taliban fighters through the Wakhan corridor intoChina where Xinjiang shares a narrow border with Afghanistan have led to thearea being swamped with Chinese security forces carrying out large militaryexercises, beginning at least one month prior to the attacks of September 11,2001. These military exercises suggested that there was growing governmentconcern about these border areas much earlier than 9/11. Under U.S. andChinese pressure, Pakistan returned one Uyghur activist to China, apprehendedamong hundreds of Taliban detainees, which follows a pattern ofrepatriations of suspected Uyghur separatists in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, andUzbekistan. Amnesty International has claimed that Chinese governmentroundups of so-called terrorists and separatists have led to hurried public trialsand immediate, summary executions of possibly thousands of locals. OneAmnesty International estimate suggested that in a country known for its frequentexecutions, Xinjiang had the highest number, averaging 1.8 per week,most of them of Uyghur. The Chinese government, in 1998, launched a nationwidecampaign against crime known as “Strike Hard”; it includes the callto erect a “great wall of steel” against separatists in Xinjiang. Troop movementsto the area related to this campaign have reportedly been the largest since thesuppression of the large Akto insurrection in April 1990. 5Ethnic Muslim Nationalism in an Age of GlobalizationInternational campaigns for Uyghur rights and possible independence havebecome increasingly vocal and well organized, especially on the Internet. Repeatedpublic appeals have been made to Abdulahat Abdurixit, the UyghurP e o p l e ’s Government chairman of Xinjiang in Urumqi. Notably, the electedchair of the Unrepresented Nations and People’s Organization (UNPO)based in The Hague is a Uyghur, Erkin Alptekin. Alptekin’s father was the separatistleader Isa Yusuf Alptekin, who is buried in Istanbul, where there is apark dedicated to his memory. There are at least twenty-five international organizationsand Web sites working for the independence of “East Tu r k i s t a n , ”supporting primarily an audience of approximately 1 million expatriateUyghurs (yet few Uyghurs in Central Asia and China have access to these Internetsites). Since September 11, 2001, each of these organizations has disclaimedany support for violence or terrorism, pressing for a peaceful resolutionof ongoing conflicts in the region. The growing influence of“ c y b e r-separatism” and the international popularization of the Uyghur causeconcerns Chinese authorities, who hope to convince the world that theUyghurs do pose a real domestic and international terrorist threat.