Uighur Muslims Targeted After Tiananmen
“I want to kill you,” Ilham Tohti said that an agent told him in a calm voice, after ramming his car from behind, Reuters reported on Tuesday, November 5.
“I want to kill your whole family,” the agent added, according to Tohti.
Tohti, an economics professor at Central University for Nationalities and founder of the website Uyghur Online, said the plainclothes agents acknowledged they had a specific goal in harassing him.
“I’ve been monitored, kept under house arrest and followed by the police for many years, but I’ve never seen public security agents behave this way,” Tohti said in a phone interview.
“To threaten children just isn’t human.”
The move followed his repeated interviews with world media after since Oct. 28, when a car struck and killed two tourists near Tiananmen Square and then went up in flames.
The government has labeled the episode an act of terrorism, accusing Uighur Muslims of plotting the attack.
Uighur Muslims have dismissed China's account of a Tiananmen Square “terrorist attack” as a dubious pretext for repression, amid signs of stepped-up security.
Tohti noted he feared the Tiananmen incident would only lead to more repression and discrimination against Muslims.
“Whatever happens, this will have a long-term and far-reaching impact on Uighurs, and will cause great harm,” he said.
“It will only worsen the obstacles Uighurs face in Han-dominated society.”
Uighur Muslims are a Turkish-speaking minority of eight million in the northwestern Xinjiang region.
Xinjiang, which activists call East Turkestan, has been autonomous since 1955 but continues to be the subject of massive security crackdowns by Chinese authorities.
Rights groups accuse Chinese authorities of religious repression against Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang in the name of counter terrorism.
Source: On Islam
