- Rick Halperin News

CHINA:

China this week sentenced 5 "splittists" to death and 7 others to jail terms in its northwest for "endangering the state's cardinal interests," the East Turkestan Information Centre (ETIC) said on Wednesday.

An article from Tuesday's edition of the Yili Evening News sent via email to Reuters by the ETIC said the sentences were announced on Monday but did not give details of the crimes.

Police and court officials in Yili prefecture, which borders Kazakhstan in the northwestern region of Xinjiang, declined to comment. Government officials in Yili and in the city of Yining, where the sentences were issued, were not available.

 China considers ethnic Uighur militants agitating for an independent state of East Turkestan in Xinjiang a terrorist threat and appealed for international support for its campaign against them in the name of the "war on terrorism."

 It says it has evidence linking Uighur militants with international "terrorist" groups.

 In the wake of the September 11 attacks, China tightened security on its northwestern borders and launched a campaign in Xinjiang's capital, Urumqi, to clamp down on violent crime, including separatism and terrorism.

 The ETIC, one of a small group of overseas organizations lobbying for the creation of the Uighur state, said someone it named as Abdulmejid was one of the 5 sentenced to death.

 An ETIC spokesman said Abdulmejid was a leader of a "revolution" in the Yili border town of Yining in February 1997 that turned into a riot and left 9 dead and more than 200 injured.

 That incident and a series of bus bombs that killed 9 more 3 weeks later in Xinjiang's capital, Urumqi, prompted police to crack down on separatist activity. Amnesty International has said at least 190 ethnic Uighurs were executed between 1997 to 1999.

 The Yili Evening News said 3 of those handed death sentences were given 2-year reprieves. It was not clear when the other 2 would be executed, but death sentences tend to be carried out swiftly in China.

 China sometimes reduces suspended death sentences to life-long prison terms on the basis of good behavior.

 The Yili branch of the Xinjiang Supreme Court and the Yining city People's Court gave 2 people life-long prison terms and the remaining 5 jail terms between 5 and 15 years, the newspaper said.