China arrested almost 1,300 in Muslim west last year: report

China arrested almost 1,300 people for terrorism, religious extremism or other state security charges in the country's Muslim-majority western Xinjiang region last year, state press said Sunday.

The vast desert area bordering Central Asia is home to more than eight million members of China's ethnic Uighur population, Muslims who have complained for decades of political and religious repression.

The Procuratorial Daily said the arrests came as the government made "maintaining social stability" a priority last year, when Beijing hosted the 2008 Olympic Games in August.

A wave of unrest, at times resulting in violence, erupted in Xinjiang ahead of the Olympics. According to state press reports, the unrest was largely fomented by Uighur Muslim separatists.

The paper said 1,295 people were arrested on suspicion of endangering state security in the first 11 months of 2008, and that 1,154 were formally charged and faced trials or administrative punishment.

Judicial authorities were ordered to "strike hard on the three forces of terrorism, separatism and religious extremism that endanger state security," it said.

Last month, two Islamic "terrorists" were sentenced to death for an attack on police four days before the Olympics that was intended to sabotage the Games, state press reported earlier, citing the Supreme Court.

The men were convicted of murder following the attack in Xinjiang that left 17 police dead and 15 injured.

The August 4 attack was the worst in a wave of unrest in Xinjiang ahead of and during the Olympics that left dozens of people dead and which China blamed on separatist militants. — AFP

Source: Today Online.
Link: http://www.todayonline.com/articles/295561.asp.