Huseyin Celil (37), Uyghur activist with Canadian citizenship, is found guilty of “terrorist activities and plotting to split the country” by the Intermediate People´s Court in Urumqi. He was sentenced to life in jail and to permanent loss of his political rights. After the sentencing, on 19 April 2007, the People´s Republic of China warned Canada against pressing his case. Canadian government offical say that they are reviewing the verdict and will have a reaction in due course.(23-APR-07)


Text: HRH/Bergen, by Gunta Venge, based on the Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) and the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Project (UNPO) press releases.

the People´s Republic of China accuses Uighur militants of using violence to establish an independent East Turkestan state in predominantly Muslim Xinjiang and Celil (also known as Husein Dzhelil) is allegedly a prominent member of pro-East Turkestan “terrorist organisations”. He fled the People´s Republic of China in the mid-1990s was accepted a refugee by Canada, where he obtained citizenship in 2005. the People´s Republic of China considers Celil a Chinese citizen and has refused Canadian officials’ access to him. Celil was detained in Uzbekistan in March 2006 and repatriated to the People´s Republic of China in June. He was accused of being active in the East Turkestan Liberation Organisation in Kyrgyzstan and recruiting people for training in camps on the Pamirs plateau in Pakistan

A number of human rights groups find that the People´s Republic of China has intensified a crackdown on Uyghurs in recent years, with arbitrary arrests and closed-door trials. Xinjiang is home to eight million Uyghurs, a Turkic, largely Islamic people who share linguistic and cultural bonds with their Central Asian neighbours. The Chinese has increased controls on religion and culture in the oil-rich province. Celil is the second Uyghur activist jailed this week. Rebiya Kadeer’s son Ablikim Abdureyim was jailed for nine years on 17 April. Another of her sons were jailed for seven years in November 2006. In February 2007 the People´s Republic of China executed Ismail Semed, a founding member of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, for attempting to “split the motherland” and the month before, in January 2007, Chinese police killed 18 people, described as terrorists, in a gun battle.