This article was downloaded by: [Selcuk Universitesi]

On: 23 December 2014, At: 18:30

Publisher: Routledge
Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered
office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Contemporary South Asia

Publication details, including instructions for authors and
subscription information:
http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ccsa20

State responses to Islamic terrorism

in western China and their impact on
South Asia
MARIKA VICZIANY
Published online: 03 Jun 2010.

To cite this article: MARIKA VICZIANY (2003) State responses to Islamic terrorism in western
China and their impact on South Asia, Contemporary South Asia, 12:2, 243-262, DOI:
10.1080/095849302000147690

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/095849302000147690

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the
“Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis,
our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to
the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions
and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,
and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content
should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources
of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims,
proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or
howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising
out of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any
substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,
systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &
Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-
and-conditions
 Contemporary South Asia (2003), 12(2),
(June 2003) 243–262

State responses to Islamic terrorism

in western China and their impact
on South Asia
MARIKA VICZIANY
Downloaded by [Selcuk Universitesi] at 18:30 23 December 2014

ABSTRACT The demand by some elements of the Uygur ethnic minority in China for a
separate state of East Turkestan has a long history pre-dating 9/11. Since 11 September,
however, the Chinese government has insisted that these separatists are no different from
other Islamic terrorists that are the focus of the global ‘War against Terror’. An examination
of official and non-official sources suggests, however, that Uygur terrorism in western China
reached its height in the early and mid-1990s. Xinjiang, the homeland of the Uygurs, has no
less than eight international borders including borders with Pakistan, Afghanistan and India.
Given the cross-border character of modern terrorism, this geographical factor gives events
in Xinjang regional significance. This paper focuses on the responses of the state to violence
in Xinjiang. It argues that despite the porous nature of the international borders of Xinjiang,
Uygur extremism in western China poses no immediate threat to South Asia. The main impact
of the Uygur separatist movement on South Asia is that it has enabled the Chinese government
to argue that it shares a common concern with the United States and India in the War against
Terror. This has, in turn, served India well because it has expanded the legitimacy of its own
clamp-down on Indian Muslims and given greater credibility to new draconian legislation
introduced into India in the aftermath of 9/11.

The events of 11 September 2001 and the global ‘War on Terror’ that followed
have placed Islamic movements throughout the world under the microscope. In
particular, all movements associated with terror or insurgency, regardless of
definitional questions about who is really a ‘freedom fighter’, have now become
the subject of regional and international surveillance. South Asia is already
widely regarded as one of the most unstable parts of the world, an instability
driven partly by persistent religious, ideological and ethnic conflict. The sur-
rounding border areas, have been defined by even more domestic and cross-bor-
der instability. Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kashmir, Nepal, Assam and Nagaland
Correspondence: Professor Marika Vicziany, Monash Asia Institute, PO Box 11A, Monash University, Clayton,
Victoria 3800, Australia; e-mail: marika.vicziany@adm.monash.edu.au.

ISSN 0958-4935 print; 1469-364X online/03/020243-20  2003 Taylor & Francis Ltd
DOI: 10.1080/095849302000147690
 M. VICZIANY

have all experienced insurgency movements of one kind or another, and many
insurgents seek opportunities from across the border to sustain their struggles. It
is within this security paradigm that we need to review developments in western
China and the implications for South Asia.
Since 9/11, the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in western China, a
province that has eight international borders including Afghanistan, Pakistan and
India, has attracted increasing attention because for a very long time Xinjiang
has been the home of a separatist movement among the Uygur national minority.
The demand has been for the establishment of an independent state of East
Turkestan ruled by Uygurs and is based on a rationale that argues for the unique
history, culture and ethnicity of the Uygurs. The Uygur are also Muslims. The
official Chinese view is that the separatist movement is led by Muslim funda-
Downloaded by [Selcuk Universitesi] at 18:30 23 December 2014

mentalists who are determined to carve an Islamic state out of western China and
are willing to resort to terrorism to achieve this end. In late 2002, the US
government gave in to Chinese pressure and placed one of the separatist
movements on its list of international terrorist organisations—the East Turkestan
Islamic Movement (ETIM). This action by the United States has given rise to the
view that terrorism in Xinjiang has increased or become more serious, but the
available data does not support this conclusion.
This paper asks how serious is the threat to South Asia of cross-border
terrorism from Xinjiang? Does the Chinese state have the capacity to respond to
this threat, and indeed what has been China’s response? In the second part of this
article we examine how Chinese over-reactions to 9/11 and Uygur terrorism
have the capacity to feed xenophobic fears inside India. The conclusion suggests
that one important outcome of China’s over-reaction to Uygur terrorism in
Xinjiang is that it feeds a new international paradigm that identifies Islam with
terrorism. In India this new paradigm validates the growth of militant Hindu
fundamentalism. It is paradoxical that the global ‘War on Terror’ has ousted
Islamic fundamentalism whilse unwittingly promoting Hindu fundamentalism.

Islamic terrorism in Xinjiang

In the 10 years from 1990 to 2001 there were only 41 major violent incidents
and a total of 58 deaths and 179 injuries resulting from the activities of Uygur
terrorists in western China. This conclusion was based on an analysis of the most
important official Chinese document issued about terrorism after 9/11, East
Turkestan Terrorist Forces Cannot Get Away with Impunity, released by the
Information Office of the State Council of China on 21 January 2001.1 The same
document states that taking minor incidents into account there were ‘over 200
terrorist incidents in Xinjiang resulting in the deaths of 162 people of all ethnic
groups … and injuries to more than 440 people’ during the 1990s.
All these numbers are modest compared with the deaths caused by Maoist
insurgents in Nepal and the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka. On average, the Sri
Lankan Tamil Tigers have probably been responsible for one-half of the annual
mortalities during a civil war that killed about 65,000 people over almost 20

244
 STATE RESPONSES TO ISLAMIC TERRORISM

years; in other words, over 1500 per annum, given that the annual fatalities were
about 3250.2 And in Nepal, during the past 2 years alone, Maoist insurgents
caused some 600 fatalities a year in 2001 and 2002. Recent mass casualty
terrorism in the United States and Indonesia has seen huge death tolls. About
3000 people were killed by the events of 9/11. Even the Bali bombings that
killed about 200 people created more death and havoc in a few moments of
explosive destruction than the total deaths that can be attributed to Uygur
terrorists during the decade of the 1990s.
Clearly, Uygur terrorism in western China is of the old kind—contained rather
than indiscriminate mass killings, and it is politically targeted rather than a blind
rage that destroys whatever stands in the way of establishing an independent
Islamic state. In fact, as we argue later, there is no overwhelming evidence to
Downloaded by [Selcuk Universitesi] at 18:30 23 December 2014

suggest that religious motives are stronger in the Uygur separatist movement,
than secular motives.

State responses to terrorism in western China

The Chinese government’s response to terrorism has been draconian and
commenced long before 9/11. In the early 1990s, China’s response to the Baren,
or Barin, ‘uprising’ was overwhelming. That tradition has continued, with the
Chinese government’s response to separatism and other crimes getting stronger
rather than weaker. Indeed, economic liberalisation since the reforms initiated by
Deng Xiaoping has seen the parallel development of a tougher anti-crime
regime. The death penalty in China is handed down for a range of crimes, not
all of which are physically violent. Repeated theft and robbery, prostitution and
drug trafficking are all punishable by death. In 1994, for example, two farmers
from Henan province were executed for ‘stealing 26 cows and small items of
agricultural machinery worth US$9,300’.3 In early 2003, peasants from Yunnan
province were executed for heroin trafficking—the latest technology was ap-
plied. Mobile courts and vans were used to hold and transport convicted
offenders who were given lethal injections, the latter being permissible since the
penal code was reformed in 1997.4 The number of offences that can bring down
the death penalty has increased from 21 to 68 between 1980 and 1996 as China
battles to deal with a rising crime wave associated with new economic opportu-
nities and mobility.5 Between 28 April and 17 June 1996 alone, China executed
1014 people.6 In a rare exception, the prominent dissident Wei Jingsheng was
allowed to leave China for the United States, and China has also signed the
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.7 On the subject
of Uygur separatism, however, the official position has been uncompromising for
‘splittism’ threatens the viability of the Chinese state, not merely the relationship
between democratic and authoritarian tendencies within it.
In response to 9/11, on 29 December 2001, the criminal code was revised once
again to increase the scope of the death penalty. The amendments specifically
targeted ‘terrorist crimes’ with increased penalties of imprisonment and a wider
applicability of the death sentence.8 To be a member of a ‘terrorist’ group was

245
 M. VICZIANY

deemed to be a crime regardless of any acts committed. More significantly, no

definition has been given of a ‘terrorist’ organisation and, according to Amnesty,
this means an increased risk of political and religious oppression. The parallels
between new Chinese and Indian legislation are stark, as we show in the second
part of this paper.

Evidence about state executions of Uygur

Splittism, separatism and insurgency are punishable by death in China. Each
year Amnesty International compiles an annual China Death Penalty Log. This
states the number of people tried, the number executed and the number who
Downloaded by [Selcuk Universitesi] at 18:30 23 December 2014

received a stay of execution in all the provinces of China. The China Death
Penalty Log provides a rough index of the systematic and draconian nature of
state responses to crime in modern China, including terrorism. Table 1 compares
the monthly number of Uygurs executed for terrorism/separatism/splittism with
the total number of all executions in 1997, 1998 and 1999. In 1997 and 1999
Uygurs, who represent less than 1% of the population of China, accounted for
between 3 and 4% of executions. 1998 was a quieter year for Uygur executions:
they represented only 1.27% of total national executions, but this still exceeded
the proportion of the Uygur in the population of China. Without exception, the
executions of Uygurs took place in Xinjiang where the alleged crimes were
committed and where they were arrested, imprisoned and brought to trial. As
Table 1 shows, the percentage of Uygurs executed for separatism exceeded the
weight of the Uygur in the population of China by about five, two and six times
in 1997, 1998 and 1999, respectively.
The number of Uygurs executed each year is, however, higher than these
figures suggest. Amnesty’s China Death Penalty Log understates the number of
Uygur executions because, in some areas and at particular times, the organs of
state security insist that political crimes should not be reported or come to public
attention in other ways. Hence the executions of Uygur is probably higher than
Table 1 suggests, which is based mainly on reports of trials and executions in
the Asian press, in particular regional Chinese newspapers. Since 9/11, China’s
security services have been more cautious than before, as a result of which
information about Uygur executions is even less reliable.
Amnesty’s China Death Penalty Log also contains some curious omissions.
For example, no executions were reported for February 1997. This was the
month of the Yining riots in northern Xinjiang. Gilles Campion reported from
Beijing that 100 executions had taken place on 12 February.9 He also reported
a further 30 public executions in Yining earlier on 7 February 1997. These
executions are missing from Amnesty’s records because they were not reported
in the local Xinjiang press. Of course, the repercussion of the Yining riots
continued to reverberate long after 1997 with some of the death penalties being
carried out later on.
Another reason why Table 1 understates the number of Uygur executed for

246
 STATE RESPONSES TO ISLAMIC TERRORISM

Table 1. Number of Uygur executions in Xinjiang for separatism/splittism relative to total

executions in 1997–2001

1997 1998 1999

Month Uygur Total Uygur Total Uygur Total

January 16 230 11 211 14 135

February 0 49 0 15 13 139
March 5 64 0 59 8 41
April 3 177 0 172 0 88
May 8 281 0 132 11 51
June 3 294 0 285 0 381
July 12 121 0 113 2 46
August 0 103 0 160 2 91
Downloaded by [Selcuk Universitesi] at 18:30 23 December 2014

September 0 192 0 103 6 126

October 0 25 12 68 0 4
November 0 44 0 94 0 26
December 16 199 0 388 0 57

Total 63 1779 23 1800 56 1263

Uygur 3.5% 1.27% 4.43%

executions in
Xinjiang as a
% of total
executions
in China

Uygur as % of 0.7% 0.7% 0.7%

the total
population of
China

Uygur
executions as 5x 2x 6x
a multiple of
the weight of
the Uygur
population in
China

Source: Amnesty International, China Death Penalty Log, January to December 1997; 1998 and
1999, www.amnestyinternational.com. In 1999, the Uygurs in Xinjiang numbered about 8.25 million
people and the total population of China was just over 1.13 billion: See Asian Development Bank,
The 2020 Project: Policy Support in the People’s Republic of China: Final Report and Policy
Directions (Manila: Asian Development Bank, 2002), p 269.

separatist activities is that some persons may have been officially executed for
drug smuggling, and some of this activity might have been related to fund
raising for Uygur terrorism even though the crime for the death penalty was not
recorded as ‘splittism’ or ‘separatism’.

247
 M. VICZIANY

Evidence about deaths in custody among the Uygur

In addition to executions, China has a high mortality rate from deaths in custody,
arising in part from the use of torture as a way of extracting information and
partly from the lack of legal representation given to people who have been
apprehended for questioning—the period of imprisonment frequently exceeds
numerous years and on evidence that is non-transparent and presumed to be
unreliable by international human rights activists and lawyers. On 14 June 2000,
for example, Zulikar Memet was executed for ‘separatism’ although he told the
court that the confession had been extracted via torture: ‘he showed the court
signs of torture including missing fingernails’.10
Given the extensive use of torture, international groups such as Amnesty
Downloaded by [Selcuk Universitesi] at 18:30 23 December 2014

International take a special interest in persons who have been imprisoned. In

1999 for example, Amnesty released a document listing Uygur prisoners about
whose personal safety it was concerned. This document named groups of
prisoners who were Uygur farmers, university students, street vendors, artisans
and one youth of 16 years who was arrested after the February 1997 riot in Ili
and sentenced to 18 years imprisonment for storing a package of explosives at
his home. In what reads like a passage from a novel by Dostoyvesky the report
states that a ‘package had been left there by a friend and neither the boy nor his
mother knew what it contained. By the time police searched Rahmatjan’s home,
the man who had left the package had been sentenced to death and executed’.11
The youth was imprisoned because the man to whom the explosives belonged
was already dead and so the truth of the boy’s assertions could not be verified.

Evidence about Uygurs killed in street battles as a result of state responses to

riots and uprisings
The death toll among the Uygur as a result of state responses to separatist riots
and uprisings exceeds deaths by execution or imprisonment. The China Death
Penalty Log and the official Chinese East Turkestan Terrorist Forces Cannot
Get Away with Impunity document do not report these ‘civilian’ casualties. The
two most famous incidents were the Baren ‘massacre’ of 1990 and the Yining
riots of 1997–98. We turn briefly to consider each.
9/11 did not bring down on China a new wave of terrorism. During the 1990s,
the most serious Uygur threat in Xinjiang occurred right at the start of the decade
with the Uygur uprising in Baren (or Barin) on 5 April 1990. The Baren
‘incident’ is mentioned in the East Turkestan Terrorist Forces Cannot Get Away
with Impunity document, but the description does not capture how serious it was
and the extent to which the incident is still remembered by Uygurs across the
world. The description of the Baren incident in the document is limited to a
single paragraph:
On April 5, 1990, a group of terrorists, aided and abetted by the ‘East Turkestan Islamic
Party,’ created a grave terrorist incident in Barin Township, Akto County, Xinjiang. They
brazenly preached a ‘holy war,’ the ‘elimination of pagans’ and the setting up of an ‘East

248
 STATE RESPONSES TO ISLAMIC TERRORISM

Turkestan Republic.’ The terrorists tried to put pressure on the government by taking ten
persons hostage, demolished two cars at a traffic junction and killed six policemen. They
shot at the besieged government functionaries with submachine guns and pistols, and threw
explosives and hand-grenades at them.12

Uygur sources, by contrast give the following account of what happen in Baren,
a small town in southern Xinjiang, near Kashgar. With a mere population of
20,000 an ‘armed uprising’ of 3000 Uygurs led by Zeydin Yusuf was an event
of considerable proportions. An article published by the East Turkestan Infor-
mation Centre in Munich describes the Baren uprising in the following terms:13
• The rebels took control of the town including the police station on 5 April.
• They announced their goal as the establishment of an independent Eastern
Downloaded by [Selcuk Universitesi] at 18:30 23 December 2014

Turkestan Republic.
• Within 24 hours nine towns in the surrounding area had joined the movement.
• The Chinese government response was draconian: on 6 April they sent the
People’s Liberation Army and militia, and on the following day 200,000
anti-riot troops from Landzou; all airports in Xinjiang were closed, martial law
was declared on 8 April and the state ‘used tanks and fighters to bomb
townships’.
• ‘9 townships were bombed’; 1600 people died, mainly Uygurs (1000) and 600
police/soliders.
• Two thousand armed Uygurs ran off to the mountains where they were
eventually ‘totally wiped out by fighter bombers’.
• The role of Islam as a rallying cry or as a motive was not mentioned.
Amnesty International declared the Baren incident a massacre. Neither Uygur
nor Amnesty sources agree with official Chinese reports on Baren. The Impunity
document only acknowledges the death of six policemen, the burning of two cars
and the fact that the terrorists took 10 hostages. The unofficial death toll appears
to have been perhaps as high as 1600. The Munich-based East Turkestan
Information Centre claims that 1000 of these were Uygur, and the rest were
government officials, soldier, or paramilitary personnel.
Another Chinese description of the Baren massacre occurs in a book by Zhang
Yumo published in 1994, some 6 years before 9/11.14 The Baren insurgency is
the fourth major uprising described by Zhang in his book and it agrees with
Uygur and Amnesty International accounts in recognising that it was a major
upheaval. According to Zhang, Baren was a ‘well planned, well organised and
pre-mediated violent act of a small number of reactionaries and ethnic separatists
hidden in Barin’. It represented the single most threatening movement since the
revolution of 1950. The movement was not so much a genuine Islamic protest
but in the words of Zhang ‘cloaked in religion’. The newly founded Eastern
Turkistan Islamic Party (ETIP) cynically manipulated ‘religious gatherings in
Mosques to brainwash the followings, especially the young ones, with religious
fanaticism to create counter-revolutionary public opinion’.15
The ETIP established a military wing called the ‘Islamic Warriors’, the young

249
 M. VICZIANY

members of which were encouraged to take up the Koran via ‘jihad’. The
uprising had its origins, according to Zhang, in a groundswell of religious
fanaticisms exemplified by the publication in Kashgar of the book The Biogra-
phy of King Bograhan in 1998. One ETIP leader by the name of Zaiden Yusuff
also circulated a pamphlet titled The Rule of Jihad that encouraged Uygurs to
‘eliminate non-believers’. An important symbol of the armed uprising was to
swear on the Koran. As Zhang and others have noted, the town of Baren itself
only had three residents who were ‘non-believers’, and they were all Han. The
rest of the 20,000 inhabitants were all Uygur. Neighbourhood conditions, in
other words, were not the target; rather, the general Han presence in Xinjiang as
a whole. Zhang’s account diverges from Uygur memory by stressing the role of
religion in the uprising.
Downloaded by [Selcuk Universitesi] at 18:30 23 December 2014

As Zhang notes, nobody could have predicted the Baren uprising. The town
had been declared to be a ‘Progressive Town’ and had won prizes for that.
In 1984 it was also given the title of ‘Ethnic Unity Model Town’. Brooding
away beneath all these honours ‘… were hidden the wave of excessive
activities of ethnic separatism, religious fanaticisms and anti-Chinese moods’.16
Zhang’s emphasis on religion, however, appears to be misplaced. Baren is one
of the poorest parts of Xinjiang. In a number of accounts the poverty of the
farmers figures as a persistent theme in Uygur opposition to Han control.
According to one Uygur journalist, Baren has been the scene of no less than
seven rebellions since 1949, largely driven by the demand for better living
conditions.17 With the China 2020 development strategies, the State Council of
the People’s Republic of China has taken a serious view of regional poverty in
Xinjiang, and indeed commissioned a number of studies to develop policies to
address this.18
It is crude to establish a scale of state violence versus non-state violence, nor
does state violence justify retribution in the form of non-state violence. Yet the
figures given earlier are compelling: official government sources say that six
policemen were killed by terrorists but the unofficial death toll is usually given
as 1600, of whom 1000 were Uygur. It is the scale of the state response that
explains why international organisations such as Amnesty International have
described the Baren incident a ‘massacre’.
The second most violent incident that occurred in Xinjiang during the 1990s
were the riots in Yining (Ili or Gulja or Khulje in Uygur) in 1997 and 1998.
There has not been a major terrorist wave since then, not before or after 9/11.
According to the Chinese government’s Impunity document, the Yining incident
was the work of the ‘East Turkestan Islamic Party of Allah’. It was ‘A serious
riot during which the terrorists shouted slogans calling for the establishment of
an Islamic Kingdom’.19 Seven persons were killed, 200 were injured, 30 vehicles
were damaged, two houses burnt to the ground, the wife of a young Han couple
attacked and killed a staffer at the local cultural centre stabbed to death.
This official summary of the Yining incident, as stated earlier, does not begin
to tap the anatomy of the riot. Amnesty International and Uygur accounts of how
the riots began are in rough agreement, largely because both are based on

250
 STATE RESPONSES TO ISLAMIC TERRORISM

dissident sources. The incidents coincided with Ramadan during which time
Chinese authorities arrested local Uygur residents and then intervened with
prayer gatherings at the mosque. The motives behind these official actions are
not given but it could be that the Uygur rumour mill was at work. Police arrests
and interrogations in Xinjiang typically follow on from the advice not of Han
informers, but of local Uygur informers who, as in other states where democratic
institutions are weak, seize the opportunity of informing on colleagues for a
variety of reasons, including petty personal animosities, misunderstandings and
the hope of personal remuneration or advancement in other ways by ingratiating
themselves with the authorities.
The response to police intervention during Ramadan first took the form of
non-violent protests by 1000 demonstrators on 5 February 1997.20 Police
Downloaded by [Selcuk Universitesi] at 18:30 23 December 2014

attempts to disperse the crowd resulted in an escalated conflict and a riot on the
6 February 1997 during which at least nine people were killed and 200 injured.
Many Uygur sources claim that 100 Uygurs were killed. A second incident
occurred in Ili in response to a ‘public sentencing rally’ of 30 Uygur leaders on
24 April 1997. These 30 stood accused of inciting the riots of 5–6 February
1997. At least three of the 30 were ‘executed immediately’. About 100 family
and relatives of the sentenced men tried to either speak to them or rescue them
from the trucks used to transport them away from the rally. At this point the
police fired on the crowd and killed three people and injured 10.21 A third group
trial occurred in Ili in July 1997 of 29 more persons, nine of whom were
executed.22 These trials were accompanied by mass sackings of officials and the
closure of religious schools.
Uygur accounts of the Yining incidents are more detailed and varied. Accord-
ing to one eyewitness account from a man who ran the 70 km from Yining to
the Kazakhstan border and eventually ended up in the United States, the protests
on 5–6 February 1997 had nothing to do with Ramadan but were in response to
a police swoop involving numerous ‘innocent prisoners’ on 1–4 February 1997.
Police reactions resulted in almost 400 deaths: 146 froze to death as a result of
the police using water cannon to break up the gathering in below freezing
temperatures, and 90 were beaten to death on day 1, while a further 160 were
shot with machine guns on day 2.23 Some 500 were arrested and about 30,000
‘army combat corps’ from neighbouring Gansu were brought in.
Another eyewitness account is provided by Aablat. He escaped imprisonment
by also running the 70 km from Yining to the Kazaksthan border. Aablat
reported that the Uygur protest began in response to the Chinese government
arresting 1000 Uygur students on 4–5 February. The students were protesting
against a new official policy of appointing mullahs ‘through administrative
channels’.24 According to Aablat, the riots had spread to the Dal Makhala district
of Yining where, on 6 February, 31 Uygur were arrested and executed the next
day. He claimed that a dozen women aged between 15 and 26 were part of this
group.25 The riots continued to spread beyond Yining for another 4 days. The
audience of 300 that listened to Aablat’s story in Almaty included numerous
mullahs, one of whom swore revenge. Another local reaction to Aablat’s story

251
 M. VICZIANY

was the merging of three Uygur exile organisations in Kazakhstan into a single
organisation called ‘Uighuristan’ with the objective of vengence.26
In commenting on the Yining incident, Erkin Aleptekin, president of the
Uygur Congress in Europe, noted that the assimilation policies of the Chinese
government have forced Uygurs to become separatists despite their natural
inclinations to avoid any kind of violence:
The great majority of the people at home and abroad are totally against any kind of armed
struggle. We believe that could easily lead to self-destruction and we don’t want to have
that.27

Uygur rioting in Yining in 1997–98 eventually spread into sporadic beating of

Han bystanders. Han residents welcomed the imposition of a government
Downloaded by [Selcuk Universitesi] at 18:30 23 December 2014

curfew. In addition to the high death toll, executions, chaos and 200 plus
injuries, some 500 or so Uygur were also arrested.
A fascinating historiography has emerged around the Yining riots. The wide
variety of explanations for the cause of the riots demonstrates the difficulty of
coming to grips with the anatomy of violence. Other versions say that the riots
began when police arrested two Uygurs for drug trafficking.28. A Turkish Uygur
report suggested that ‘some Muslim women were reading prayers in a private
house when they were arrested.29 Another view was that riots began when police
tried to arrest two Uygur talips (religious school students) towards the end of
Ramadan.30 Others connect the Yining riot to the start of the ‘Strike Hard’
campaign of April 1996 that resulted in the arrest of some 57,000 Uygur.31 This
latter document refutes the claim that the Yining incidents were instigated by
foreigners or local Islamic fundamentalists. Instead it insists that the Chinese
government is blaming fundamentalists because it is pandering to the Christian
West by using ‘scary labels like Islamic fundamentalist’.32 The document goes
on to insist that, despite ethnic differences, the Uygurs of Xinjiang believe in a
friendly co-existence with the Chinese but that they feel threatened by increasing
Han demographic dominance, ‘inhumane birth control policies’, inadequate
‘normal health care and education’ and job discrimination. It calls for the need
to avoid ‘another ethnic madness’ and insists that this requires China to deal
with Uygur alienation.33
Regardless of the causes for the Yining riot, all accounts except the official
Chinese version agree that the civilian casualties were extensive. Again, if we
measure the scale of violence, we have official estimates of seven deaths caused
by separatists versus unofficial estimates of several hundred Uygur civilians who
died as a result of state intervention. The state response at the time and since
then has been tough. On the anniversary of the Yining incident, the police
typically round up Uygur youth to prevent any popular demonstrations to
commemorate the 1997 Yining events. On 4 February 2002, for example, it is
alleged that about 250 young Uygur men were arrested in a sweep of Yining
city.34
An overview of the nature of Uygur terrorism and the response of the Chinese
state suggests that in western China there is a large region of considerable

252
 STATE RESPONSES TO ISLAMIC TERRORISM

domestic political, cultural and religious turmoil. The violent components of that
turmoil include murders, arson and other activities by Uygur terrorists; state
executions of Uygur criminals tried by the local courts; Uygur deaths in custody;
and hundreds of civilian casualties resulting from state intervention to put down
Uygur riots and uprisings.
There is a growing international consensus that is increasingly more critical of
state intervention than the Uygur terrorism that gave rise to it. The summary
nature of many Chinese responses to Uygur activism has caused concern about
innocents who have been arrested, executed and imprisoned without due cause.
The use of torture as the basis of evidence contributes to the risk of executing
the wrong person. In short, the foregoing catalogue of violence cannot be taken
as an accurate index of the extent of Uygur separatist activities in western China.
Downloaded by [Selcuk Universitesi] at 18:30 23 December 2014

But it is an accurate index of the extensive and draconian nature of official state
responses to Uygur separatism. Many of the Uygurs who have been caught up
in the web of violence between Uygur terrorists and the Chinese state may be
very critical of the Chinese government and its development priorities, but this
does not make them into terrorists. Nevertheless, such critics can readily be
mistaken as separatists, especially when official responses to Uygur separatism
depend largely on Uygur informers. Visitors to Xinjiang rapidly become aware
of placing their Uygur colleagues in danger because even casual conversations
about Islam or the negative aspects of state-sponsored development policies
might be overheard and misreported by informers.

The implications of Uygur terrorism for South Asia

Does Uygur terrorism constitute a regional security threat to South and Central
Asia? The answer is a resounding no. First, it is evident that Uygur terrorism and
other Uygur demands constitute no significant threat to the modern Chinese
state. State responses to Uygur challenges have been swift, draconian and
uncompromising. Moreover, given the divisions among the Uygur community
itself, it has not been difficult for the Chinese government to find plenty of paid,
internal informers. Contrary to expectations, Uygur religious leaders have also
been a voice of moderation. Partly this is because the training and appointment
of Islamic leaders in China is controlled by the government.35 Partly this
moderation reflects a popular Islamic culture that is moderate and liberal
compared with Saudi Arabia and even contemporary Pakistan.36 Another reason
for the moderate nature of Islam in Xinjiang is that the Uygur middle class are
professional people of secular disposition, adhering to their Islamic beliefs and
practices in a private capacity that does not have political significance. Finally,
the madarsi (religious schools) that have created new generations of Islamic
fundamentalists in Afghanistan and Pakistan37 do not exist in China. All this
evidence suggests that popular support for a sustained Islamic republican
independence movement in Xinjiang does not exist. What does exist is a deep
sense of alienation and extensive criticism by Uygurs of official Chinese policy
towards Xinjiang on political, economic, social and cultural matters.38

253
 M. VICZIANY

Second, despite the porous, mountainous borders between western China and
its eight international neighbours, there is no evidence to show that a strong
Muslim brotherhood has emerged among Uygur terrorists and terrorists on the
other side of these borders. During the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, for
example, some 1000 Uygur were involved in military training at various Taliban
camps but the Taliban themselves were not particularly sympathetic to the Uygur
cause.39 In addition to being focused on their own immediate agenda, it has been
alleged by Uygur separatists themselves that the Taliban received arms and other
support from Beijing. This curtailed the Taliban’s enthusiasm for any pan-Is-
lamic generosity.
Third, with the United States’ war in Afghanistan and the fall of the Taliban
regime, the Uygur based in Afghanistan dispersed. About 110 Uygur separatists
Downloaded by [Selcuk Universitesi] at 18:30 23 December 2014

were extradited from Afghanistan back to China and a further 300 were arrested
by US troops and are still under US guard as prisoners-of-war. None of these
have any capacity to act and all of them face the probability of extended prison
sentences and/or the death penalty. The bulk of the Uygur trainees probably fled
into the hills of Pakistan. Some were then arrested by the Pakistani authorities
who, as a result of General Musharaff’s decision to save the ailing Pakistan state
by allying itself with the United States, remain under great pressure to demon-
strate that they did not support or harbour terrorists of any kind.40 The pressure
to outlaw terrorists in Pakistan continues to intensify, with the result that any
Uygur terrorists lurking in Baluchistan or other remote parts cannot depend on
receiving government support despite the previous history of the Pakistani state
sponsoring Islamic terrorism. The Pakistan government has even declared its
willingness to appease China by expelling Uygur students who have been
studying at Pakistani madarsi (religious schools).41
Fourth, some Uygur terrorists may have made their way into Nepal, a regular
destination for Uygur dissidents escaping from imprisonment in China.42 But the
chances of them connecting up with Maoist insurgents in Nepal is remote. There
is nothing to link the Uygur and Maoist insurgents in either ideology or political
agenda.
Fifth, the porous nature of the borders of Xinjiang has been partly blocked by
treaty arrangements between the Chinese and neighbouring governments. Known
as the Shanghai Six or the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, China has agreed
with its western neighbours to seal the borders against cross-border terrorism.43
This means that the Uygur communities living in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Uzbekistan and other former Soviet states (numbering no more than 600,000),44
will not get a hearing from these governments unless some kind of covert
activity is undertaken to work against the interests of China. This scenario is
unlikely. It does not serve the interests of these border states to promote
terrorism inside China because there is no guarantee that this will not spill over
into their own fragile territories. The treaty also encourages a joint response to
potential threats and this in turn has generated an exchange of intelligence about
terrorist activities. The result is that, since 9/11, China and each of her

254
 STATE RESPONSES TO ISLAMIC TERRORISM

neighbours is in a much better position to protect the domestic status quo than
before 9/11.
Sixth, despite attempts to suggest that Uygurs have joined up with jihadi
elements in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, there is no evidence of this. Nor is
there any evidence of Uygur terrorists being active inside India.
Seventh, there is no justification for assuming that even the international
Uygur movement supports the creation of a Uygur homeland by militant means.
There are important differences between different diasporic associations that
number well over two dozen. There are also differences in ideology, strategy and
practice between the banned ETIM and the East Turkestan Liberation Organis-
ation.45 Moreover, the majority of Uygur living abroad may give tacit approval
to separatism, but there is no evidence of money laundering, gun running or
Downloaded by [Selcuk Universitesi] at 18:30 23 December 2014

other illegal activities supported by the overwhelming majority of Uygurs living

in Australia, the United States or Europe. Typically, the Uygur diaspora are
concerned primarily with their own lives in their new host countries. They have,
however, actively lobbied their new governments in concern for the human
rights of persons incarcerated in China.
Finally, as argued earlier on, the death toll from terrorist incidents and murder
has been relatively low in Xinjiang46 in contrast to the deaths caused by state
intervention to put down Uygur separatism. Moreover, in the 2 years leading up
to 11 September, there had been a lull in terrorist activity rather than a
crescendo. That was also the official Chinese government view of the situation
as late as 1 September 2001. At that time, Urumqi was hosting a major trade fair
and the government was eager to assure Chinese and international tourists that
despite the terrorism seen in Yining and Baren, this was not typical of Xinjiang,
where stability and peace were not at risk.47 Despite this, between 11 September
and 31 December 2001, perhaps as many as 3000 Uygur were arrested by
Chinese police and military as part of a massive swoop to pick up separatist
suspects.48 Moreover, no meaningful distinction is made between ‘separatism’
and ‘terrorism’. In the lexicon of the Chinese state, the former automatically
seems to assume the latter.
Sentencing and executions have continued apace, but the public record on
these is weak because of a clamp-down on government announcements about the
imposition of the death penalty. By January 2002, more than 500 terrorists from
21 different organisations had been apprehended in Kashgar alone during the
previous year.49 And the arrests continued throughout 2002–03.50 This was
facilitated by the largest military exercises seen in Xinjiang—about 50,000
troops were allegedly involved but significantly the movements began in the
months before 9/11, not after.51 This suggests, as Amnesty International and
others have argued, that the ‘strike hard’ campaign that began in 1996 was still
going strong when the events of 9/11 took over. Indeed, according to Amnesty
the campaign had accelerated in 2001 long before 9/11. There was a gladiatorial
aspect to the hectic campaign of trials and executions with provinces out doing
each other in bringing criminals to court and delivery of speedy, draconian
sentences.52

255
 M. VICZIANY

The implications for South Asia of state responses to Uygur terrorism in

western China

While terrorism in Xinjiang does not pose any immediate security threats to
either China or South Asia, the draconian response to Uygur terrorism by the
Chinese state has fed regional and international paranoia about Islamic terrorism.
This has happened because so few scholars and foreigners travel to western
China to directly experience the kind of liberal Islam that exists there. Moreover,
the visitors who do come are largely tourists on focused programmes that
provide no opportunity for interaction with the local Uygur. Fear of Uygur
informers also makes Uygurs themselves cautious about speaking to foreigners.
An unwise word or gesture is readily misunderstood in this climate. Official
Downloaded by [Selcuk Universitesi] at 18:30 23 December 2014

Chinese accounts of Uygur separatism and terrorism, therefore, are difficult to

contest. Given the poor human rights records of other countries in the region,
China belongs to a broad spectrum of governments that dismiss Amnesty
International concerns about Uygur executions, imprisonments and civilian
casualties.
In India, state responses to Uygur terrorism inside China have provided the
right-wing government led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) with another
example to justify its agenda of promoting the view that there is a global threat
from Islamic fundamentalism and jihad. Paradoxically, the weak Islamic repub-
lican movement in western China now provides extra support to the ongoing
elaboration of a militant form of Hindu fundamentalism inside India. Since the
coming to power in 1991 of the BJP-led coalition government in New Delhi,
Hindu nationalism has increasingly replaced secularism as the dominant senti-
ment in Indian political and social life. This Hindutva project does not reflect
any primordial drive on the part of the people of India, but rather a carefully
engineered political agenda designed by right-wing Hindu parties to use Hindu
culture and identity as the basis for winning elections, staying in power, and
sharing the benefits of power. The success of the Hindutva project has depended
critically on projecting Indian Muslims as the ‘enemy from inside’. Among the
right-wing parties there has even been a contest to see which party has the higher
moral authority to lead the Hindutva campaign. In western India, for example,
the Shiv Sena, which began its political life as a chauvinistic party opposed to
the migration of Tamils and other outsiders into Maharashtra,53 has shifted its
agenda towards Hindutva in its bid to become a party of national relevance. In
the process, it has become engaged in a tussel with the BJP to demonstrate that
the Shiv Sena, rather than the BJP, has the uncompromising commitment needed
to realise the emergence of a purely Hindu state.54
The Hindutva project has now developed populist elements, as the Gujarati
state elections of December 2002 showed. The election campaign that led to an
overwhelming victory for the BJP was based on a cynically orchestrated
campaign that identified the Muslim minority of Gujarat as the ‘other’. The
militant Hindu fundamentalist strategy resulted in the murder of about 2000
Gujarati Muslims in early 2002. For the first time, tribal people were recruited

256
 STATE RESPONSES TO ISLAMIC TERRORISM

to express their violent hostility towards Muslims. Many tribal districts in

Gujarat received international development aid, channelled from the United
States and the United Kingdom, via the international branches of the BJP and its
allies in the Sangh Parivar. International development assistance had been used
to educate tribal people into forms of literacy that included a hatred of
Muslims.55 Recent research has revealed the depth and extent of the Hindutva
project. The marginalisation of the Indian Muslims and projections about how
they threaten the welfare of the Indian nation (ie the Hindu nation) is reflected
in Hindi movies,56 Indian newspapers,57 and the rewriting of Indian history texts
that now expunge all favourable references to Muslims and Muslim contribu-
tions to Indian history and culture.58
India’s domestic Hindutva campaign has given her foreign and defence
Downloaded by [Selcuk Universitesi] at 18:30 23 December 2014

policies a new and uncompromising momentum. Although General Musharaff’s

regime has abandoned previous official sponsorship of Islam and a more
moderate voice has emerged on the question of Pakistani claims to Kashmir,59
none of this has made a substantial difference to Indian views about how
Pakistan is deliberately sponsoring terrorism not only in Kashmir, but also in
India. As Rita Manchanda points out, the domestic marginalisation of India’s
large Muslim minority (despite the fact that India has the world’s second largest
Muslim population after Indonesia) has depended on constructing Pakistan as a
ruthless and persistent ‘enemy’.60 The mass hysteria surrounding the 13 Decem-
ber, 2001 terrorist attack on the Indian parliament demonstrates how public
opinion inside India has been constructed to ‘demand retaliatory action against
Pakistan’ and its domestic sympathisers. In this environment, it is difficult for
the voices of Indian moderation and secularism to be heard. While cross-border
terrorism from Pakistan into Kashmir has been a serious problem for a long time,
the current equation of terrorism with Islam represents a serious departure from
previous domestic policy positions. At the international level, India has pres-
sured the United States to declare Pakistan a ‘rogue’ state, and the 13 December
shootings in the Indian parliament gave India further opportunities to ‘play a
new politics of brinkmanship’.61 In this scenario, the Hindus themselves can do
no wrong and the destruction of the Babri Masjid in 1992 is not a wanton act
of communal hatred, but a righteous religious war against a ‘disputed structure’.
Within India, the hardening of the anti-Pakistan position into a generalised
anti-Muslim position now threatens the institutions of Indian democracy. The
failure and unwillingness of both state and central governments to control
anti-Muslim killings in the Gujarat in 2002 demonstrates how far the citizenship
rights of India’s Muslims has been eroded. India’s Muslims have become ‘the
other’ and it is no longer uncommon to hear them described as ‘Pakistanis’, a
bye-word for ‘Enemy of India’.
Indian preoccupation with Islamic threats domestically, on her borders and
internationally, need to be seen as carefully constructed and politically self-serv-
ing strategies to bolster the power of the BJP and its supporters. Uygur
insurgency in western China is only one thread in a story of Islamic resurgence
that feeds into this scary paradigm. Washington’s decision to give in to Beijing’s

257
 M. VICZIANY

insistence that the ETIM be listed as a terrorist organisation is worrying for its
contribution to weaving a denser fabric of Islamic threats. This enveloping fabric
of terror has given greater credibility to Indian lobbies demanding tougher
measures against terrorism, especially in the form of draconian legislation that
gives the Indian state greater powers of surveillance, arrest, detention and
imprisonment. The direct outcome of these developments was the Prevention of
Terrorism Ordinance (POTO).
India has a long history of repressive legislation reflecting what Mendelsohn
calls a schizophrenic constitution that incorporates both liberal and authoritarian
possibilities.62 However, since the infamous Terrorism and Disruptive Activies
(Prevention) Act was allowed to fall into abeyance in 1995, there has been no
special law to handle the matter of internal and border security. This has all
Downloaded by [Selcuk Universitesi] at 18:30 23 December 2014

changed now with the passing of POTO after a protracted 10-hour debate during
a special joint session of both houses of the Indian Parliament on 26 March
2002: 425 votes for and 296 votes against.63
It is significant that POTO came under severe attack in India, especially from
Muslim groups who immediately recognised how the law could further curtain
their liberties. The All India Milli Council passed a resolution at a National
Convention on 15 November 2001 opposing POTO as an infringement on civil
liberties.64 Similar concerns were expressed by civil rights groups, the Congress
Party, opposition parties, left wing trade unions and the socialist-communist
parties.65 The Asia-Pacific Human Rights Network argued that all the provisions
of POTO were already contained in numerous Indian statutes and that there had
been fewer rather than more terrorist attacks in Jammu and Kashmir in the year
before 9/11.66
Critics of POTO fear that the law will be abused mainly in suppressing
minority criticism of the Indian government. As Sonia Gandhi and others noted,
the POTO ordinance was in effect when 2000 Muslims were killed in the Gujarat
in early 2002 but the new law did not help prevent murder and chaos because
the Gujarat government was indifferent to the pain of Muslims.67 The concern
all along has been that POTO might only swing into action against Muslim
terrorists and extremists but not Hindu extremists.68 Given the characteristics of
the militant Hindu fundamentalism described earlier, these fears are not un-
reasonable. In the words of Mendelsohn, POTO demonstrates how the ‘effect of
opportunistic authoritarianism will combine with other developments … so as to
undermine some of the fragile supports of Indian democracy’.69
POTO differs from previous legislation by broadening the definition of
‘terrorist’ to include ‘terrorist organisations and their supporters and sympathis-
ers’.70 As to what constitutes a ‘sympathiser’, that decision is left to Indian
security police, military and paramilitary. POTO enables the Indian police to
detain suspects for up to 90 days without trial. The trials themselves can be in
camera, heard in special courts and admit evidence extracted from confessions
conducted beyond ‘the ordinary rules of evidence under the Indian Evidence Act
of 1872’.71 And if the arrested person has fingerprints or arms ‘pointing to the

258
 STATE RESPONSES TO ISLAMIC TERRORISM

involvement of the accused’, then the burden of proof is reversed.72 POTO lists
23 terrorist organisations, including four that have been defunct for some time.73

Conclusion
In summary, Uygur terrorism, separatism and discontent do not threaten major
instability in South Asia. There is little brotherhood between Islamic Uygurs and
other Muslims in neighbouring countries. Moreover, in Xinjiang itself, many
Uygur religious and secular leaders are opposed to the notion of an independent
East Turkestan, and they take this position not only because they have official
recognition by the Chinese government. In the aftermath of 9/11, in particular,
these leaders voluntarily voiced their disapproval of terrorism, argued that the
Downloaded by [Selcuk Universitesi] at 18:30 23 December 2014

Koran did not support any forms of violence, and disassociated themselves from
the East Turkestan movement.74 Moderate, middle-class Muslims in Xinjiang are
in this way little different from Muslims throughout the world.
Despite this and the relative cross-border stability discussed in this paper, the
psychosis of fear that has emerged in India is sharply focused on the dangers of
Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism. Those dangers have been embellished by
US foreign policy that increasingly seems to be at war not with terror, but with
Islam. Moreover, the psychosis of fear in India has been encouraged by the BJP
and its Hindu fundamentalist allies in cynical manoeuvres to win state and
national elections. In their rejection of secularism, the BJP-led coalition has
identified Hinduism and Hindus as a new ‘vote bank’. The re-emergence of
draconian legislation to deal with terrorism in India after 9/11 is a reflection of
this interaction between domestic and international politics. Within India, dom-
estic, foreign and defence policies are now all filtered through the prism of
Hindutva. As a result of this, all Islamic movements in the region are regarded
by the BJP as part of a larger Islamic project that threatens regional instability.
The paranoid paradigm within which the Hindutva project resides is not open to
discussions about which kind of Islamic movements threaten chaos and violence
and which do not. Hindutva, together with 9/11, compelled the Indian govern-
ment to introduce new anti-terrorist legislation designed to address the question
of Islamic terrorism in particular.
In China, however, Uygur terrorism has no hope of achieving its ends of
establishing a separate state of East Turkestan, even if sporadic outbreaks of
violence continue. The majority of Uygur are deeply alienated from Beijing’s
plans for Xinjaing’s future but only rarely does this alienation push individuals
in the direction of violent separatist movements. Most Uygurs follow a liberal
Islamic way of life that is compatible with the larger modernisation and
secularism promoted by the government of China. The problem for China is how
the Uygur can be incorporated more meaningfully into the political and econ-
omic decision-making process and how the Uygur can be assured that their
cultural aspirations are not going to be dismissed as irrelevant. Middle-class
Uygur, in particular, have much to gain by the continued emergence of China as
Asia’s new powerhouse. It would not benefit them, or ordinary Uygur, to split

259
 M. VICZIANY

off into a separate Islamic republic that is bound to confront the full hostility of
all its neighbours. In other words, the task of nation-building facing both India
and China today is how to bring the Muslim minorities into the mainstream
rather than see them as a marginal communities that threaten national and
regional disorder. For the two major secular polities of the post-colonial era to
have reached this common point after 50 years of independence is truly very sad
and paradoxical but not irreversible.

Notes and references

1. State Council, East Turkistan Terrorist Forces Cannot Get Away with Impunity (Beijing: Information
Office, State Council, 2002), http:;dRenglihs.peopledaily.com.cn/200201/21/print20020121 89078.htnml,
accessed 21 January 2002.
Downloaded by [Selcuk Universitesi] at 18:30 23 December 2014

2. Sources for these figures are cited in M. Vicziany, ‘Islamic terrorism in Xinjiang and its implications for
South Asia’, in M. Vicziany, D. Wright-Neville and P. Lentini (eds), Regional Security in the Asia-Pacific:
9/11 and After (London: Edward Elgar, 2003), in press).
3. Amnesty International, ‘PRC: at least 1,000 people executed in “strike hard” campaign against crime,’
ASA 117/72/96, July, http://www.amnesty.org, accessed January 2002.
4. C. Armitage, ‘Chinese driven to execution’, The Australian, 13 March 2003.
5. Amnesty International, ‘Gross human rights violations continue’, ASA 17/17/96, http://
www.amnestry.org/ailib/intcam/china/china96/hrv.htm, accessed March 2002.
6. Amnesty International, op cit, Ref 3, p 1.
7. Amnesty International, ‘People’s Republic of China: summary of Amnesty International concerns’, ASA
17/06/96, 16 June 1998, p 2, http://www.web.amnesty.org/ai.nsf/index/ASA170061998, accessed April
2002.
8. Amnesty International, ‘PRC: China’s anti-terrorism legislation and repression in the Xinjiang Uighur
autonomous region’, ASA 17/10/2002, March 2002, pp 2–5, http://www.amnesty.org, accessed April
2002.
9. G. Campion, ‘Mass trials, executions follow Moslem riots in China’, 12 February 1997, http://
www.taklamakan.org/uighur-1/Ili-97/wunn2.html accessed January 2002.
10. Amnesty International, ‘China: extensive use of torture—from police to tax collectors to birth control
officials’, ASA 17 March 2001, http://www.amnesty.org, accessed January 2002.
11. Amnesty International, People’s Republic of China: gross violation of human rights in the Xinjiang Uighur
autonomous region: prisoner profiles, ASA 17/36/1999, http://www.amnesty.org/, accessed January 2002.
12. State Council, op cit, Ref 1.
13. ‘Baren victims remembered’, East Turkestan Information Bulletin, ET Union, Europe, April 1993,
http://www.google.com/search?q ⫽ cache:rQHAzn-ZPkwC:www.taklamakan.org/etib/etib3_2.html ⫹
‘baren, ⫹ china’&hl ⫽ en&ie ⫽ UTF-, accessed January 2002.
14. Y. Zhang, ‘The anti-separatism struggle and its historical lessons since the liberation of Xinjiang’, in Yang
Faren (ed in chief), Li Ze and Dong Sheng assistant eds), Pan-Turkism & Pan-Islamism Study, Beijing,
1994, http://www.uyghuramerican.org/researchanalysis/trans.html, accessed February 2003. The document
that appears on this website is not an extract from the book but the original paper dated August 1993. For
background information about Zhang’s study, see Turdi Ghoja (1998), Foreword to Zhang Yumo’s paper
‘The Anti-Separatism Struggle and its Historical Lessons Since the Liberation of Xinjiang’, 4 February,
http://www.uyghuramerican.org/researchanalysis/trans.html, accessed March 2003.
15. Zhang, Ibid.
16. Zhang, Ibid.
17. P. Yorungqash, ‘Barin incident—natural outcome of national oppression and poverty (dedicated to 12th
anniversary of the Barin incident)’, Spark, 18 April 2002, http://www.uygur/org/spark/archiv/13/3/3.htm,
accessed February 2003.
18. Asian Development Bank, The 2020 Project: Policy Support in the People’s Republic of China. Final
Report and Policy Directions (Manila: ADB, December 2002), http://www.adb.org/Documents/Reports/
2020_Project/default.asp, accessed February 2003.
19. State Council, op cit, Ref 1.
20. Amnesty International, op cit, Ref 7.
21. Ibid.
22. Ibid.

260
 STATE RESPONSES TO ISLAMIC TERRORISM

23. P. Niyaz, ‘Yining (Khulje) massacre, an eyewitness record’, 9 March 1997, http://www.taklamakan.org/
uighur-1/Ili-97, accessed January 2003.
24. A. Grabot, ‘Uighurs mobilise after bloody ethnic riots in China’, Agence France Presse, 15 February 1997,
http://www.taklamakan.org/uighur-1/Ili-97//wunn4.html, accessed January 2003.
25. Ibid.
26. ‘Reactions to events on Chinese border with Kazakstan’, Omri Daily Digest 1, No 33, 17 February 1997,
http://www.taklamakan.org/uighur-1/Ili-97/, accessed January 2003.
27. Erkin Aleptekin interviewed by Ali Jalali, Voice of America, cited in World Uyghur Network News, No
2, 14 February 1997, http://www.uygur.org/enorg/wunn97/wunn021497.htm, accessed February 2003.
28. Agence France Press, Beijing, ‘International Media on Events in Ghulje on February 6, 1997’, World
Uyghur Network News, 11 February 1997, http://www.taklamakan.org/uighur-!/Ili-97/wunn3.html, ac-
cessed February 2003.
29. G. Butler, ‘Uigher unrest’, Voice of America, 11 February 1997, http://www.taklamakan.org/uighur-I/Ili-
97/wunn3.html, accessed February 2003.
30. East Turkistan Information Centre, ‘32 Uyghurs killed in clashes with the Chinese military in Dhulje’, 11
February 1997, World Uyghur Network News, http://www.taklamakan.org/uighur-1/Ili-97/wunn1.html,
Downloaded by [Selcuk Universitesi] at 18:30 23 December 2014

accessed February 2003.

31. ‘Declaration of protest against policies of the government of the People’s Republic of China in Eastern
Turkistan’, 1997, http://www.taklamakan.org/uighur-1/Ili-97/us1.html, accessed February 2003.
32. Ibid.
33. Ibid.
34. ‘Chinese Communist Authorities in East Turkistan Arrested 250 young men in Ili’, Spark, 4 February
2003, http://www.uygur/org/wunn03/2003_02_15.htm, accessed February 2003.
35. C. Mackerras, ‘Xinjiang at the Turn of the Century and the Causes of Separatism’, manuscript given to
the author by Prof. Mackerrras. Revised version published in Central Asian Survey, Vol. 20, No. 3,
September 2001, pp. 289–303.
36. Observations based on the author’s visit to Urumqi and Aksu in mid-2001 and to Urumqi and Kashgar in
late-2002.
37. See, for example, Samina Yasmeen’s account of Greneral Zia’s policy of state-sponsored Islam and the
development and role of madarasi in Pakistan: S. Yasmeen, ‘Pakistan and the struggle for “real” Islam’,
in S. Akbarzadeh and A. Saeed (eds), Islam and Political Legitimacy (London: Routledge and Curzon,
2003), pp 77–78.
38. See M. Vicziany and A. Eli, ‘Sporting heroes of Xinjiang: the case for national integration’, manuscript,
2003.
39. M. Vicziany, op cit, Ref 2.
40. Ibid.
41. Mirablikim, ‘A letter from a Uyghur in Pakistan’, 7 February 1999 to the Uygur American Association,
http://www.uyghuramerican.org/recentevents/lettertopak.html, accessed February 2003.
42. ‘Pakistan deports Uygur refugees to China’, citing Amnesty International Urgent Action Call, Spark, 22
April 2002, http://www.uygur.org/wunn02/2002_04_22.html, accessed .
43. P. Lentini, ‘The Shanghai six: controlling cross border terrorism’, in M. Vicziany, D. Wright-Neville and
P. Lentini (eds), op cit, Ref 2.
44. Turkey has the largest number of Uygur, some 300,000, followed by Uzbekistan with 200,000. See East
Turkistan Information Centre (Munich), Report on Situation with Human Rights of Uygurs in Uzbekistan,
2 April 2002, http://www.uygur.org, accessed February 2003 and AFP, ‘Turkey apologises to China over
flag-burning incident’, 17 February 1997, http://www.taklamakan.org/uighur-1/Ili-97/wunn, accessed
February 2003.
45. M. Vicziany, op cit, Ref 39.
46. Ibid.
47. XUAR government officials, cited by Amnesty International, ‘PRC: China’s anti-terrorism legislation and
repression in the Xinjiang Uighur autonomous region’, ASA 17/10/2002, March, http://
www.amnesty.orga, accessed February 2003.
48. Ibid, p 19,
49. W. Meissner, ‘China’s response to September 11 and its changing position in international relations’,
Working Paper Series, Paper no 4, September 2002 (Hong Kong: David C Lam Institute for East-West
Studies, Hong Kong Baptist University), p 4.
50. ‘Serious Arrests in Kashgar’, Spark, 10 April 2002, http://www.uygur.org/wunn02/2002_04_10.htm,
accessed February 2003; and ‘Mass arrests started in Hotan’, Spark, 3 April 2002, http://www.uygur.org/
spark/archiv/11/index.html, accessed February 2003.
51. Meissner, op cit, Ref 49, p 3.

261
 M. VICZIANY

52. Amnesty International, ‘PRC: Human Rights in China in 2001—a new step backwards (an Amnesty
International briefing)’, ASA 17/28/2001, 3 September 2001, http://www.amnesty.org, accessed February
2003.
53. S. Patel, The Power Base of the Shiv Sena in Mumbai (Melbourne: National Centre for South Asian
Studies Discussion Paper no 2, 1996).
54. M. Vicziany, ‘The BJP and the Shiv Sena: a rocky marriage?’, in Special Issue: The BJP and Governance
in India, South Asia, Vol XXV, No 3, December 2002, pp 43–46.
55. M. Vicziany, ‘Globalisation and Hindutva: India’s experience with global economic and political
integration’, in G. Davies et al. (eds), Globalisation in Asia (London: Edward Elgar, 2003), in press.
56. B. Shoesmith and N. Meckali, ‘Religion as “commodity images”: security a Hindi Rashtra’, in Special
issue op cit, Ref 54, pp 265–281.
57. R. Manchanda, ‘Militarised Hindu Nationalism and the mass media: shaping a Hindutva Public Discourse’,
in ibid, pp 301–321.
58. M. Hasan, ‘The BJP’s intellectual agenda: textbooks and imagined history’, in ibid, pp 187–211.
59. See Samina Yasmeen’s article in this issue.
60. R. Manchanda, Ref. 57, p. 316.
Downloaded by [Selcuk Universitesi] at 18:30 23 December 2014

61. A. Vanaik, ‘Making India strong: the BJP-led government’s foreign policy perspectives’, in Special Issue,
op cit, Ref 54, p 338.
62. O. Mendelsohn, ‘Law, terror and the Indian Legal Order’, paper to the Globalisation and Law in Asia
Workshop, Onati, 10–11 April 2003, p 2.
63. D. Kuan, ‘India: tough act’. World Press Review Online, June 2002, Vol 49, No 6, http://
www.worldpress.org/Asia/555.cfm, accessed February 2003.
64. All India Milli Council, ‘Resolution passed at the National Convention on National Security’, The Milli
Gazette, 15 November 2001, http://www.milligazette.com, accessed April 2003.
65. ‘The danger of India’s POTO’, Revolutionary Worker, No 1145, 7 April 2002, http://www.rwor.org,
accessed April 2003.
66. Asia Pacific Human Rights Network, ‘POTO: govt decides to play judge and jury’, Human Rights
Features 2002, http://www.hrdc.net/sahrdc/hrfquarterly.Jan-March_2002/poto.html, accessed April 2003.
67. Kuan, op cit, Ref 63, p 202.
68. P. Bidwai, ‘The perils of POTO’, Frontline, Vol 18, No 24, November–December 2001.
69. Mendelsohn, op cit, Ref 62, p 2.
70. Bidwai, op cit, Ref 68.
71. Mendelsohn, op cit, Ref 62, p 9.
72. Ibid.
73. V. Venkatesan, ‘The POTO debate’, Frontline, Vol 18, No 24, November–December 2001.
74. China Daily, ‘Islamic community condemns “East Turkistan” terrorist force’, 26 January 2002, http://
www1.chinadaily.com.cn/pn/2002–02–06/55829.html, accessed .

262