[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 101 (Friday, July 16, 1999)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1579-E1580]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    RISE IN HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES IN THE UIGHUR AUTONOMOUS REGION OF 
                            XINJIANG, CHINA

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. JOHN EDWARD PORTER

                              of illinois

                    in the house of representatives

                         Friday, July 16, 1999

  Mr. PORTER. Mr. Speaker, I rise to bring attention to one of the 
forgotten areas of the world, where human rights abuses are at an all 
time high and the degree of these abuses is inhuman and completely 
unimaginable to most of us--the Uighur Autonomous region of Xinjiang, 
China (XUAR). I have spoken before this Congress many times to discuss 
the horrendous way the government of the People's Republic of China 
treats its people, but, according to the experts, the situation the 
Uighurs are facing is far worse than in any other region of the 
country.
  Amnesty International released a report in April documenting the 
conditions and abuses in Xinjiang, and yesterday the Congressional 
Human Rights Caucus held a briefing on the Uighurs. We heard from five 
Uighurs as well as human rights advocates who all describe the same 
abominable situation.
  Xinjiang has long been inhabited by a mixture of different Muslim 
peoples including Kazakhs, Kyrgyz and Tajiks, as well as the majority 
Uighurs. The region enjoyed independent statehood until 1759, when it 
was conquered by China's Manchu dynasty. In subsequent years, there 
were numerous attempts to shake Chinese rule lasting well into the 
twentieth century. The most significant of these was in 1945, when 
local forces took advantage of the looming civil war between Communist 
and Nationalist Chinese to revive the independent republic of East 
Turkestan, which survived until 1949 when it was crushed by divisions 
of the People's Liberation Army (PLA). Han Chinese migration and 
settlement into Xinjiang greatly increased with the onset of the 
economic reforms of the early 1980s, to the point where there are now 
almost as many Han as Uighurs living in Xinjiang. The two main ethnic 
groups live in virtual segregation,

[[Page E1580]]

racial discrimination is widely reported and unemployment among Uighurs 
is high.
  Since the early 1990s, the growing strength of the Islamic cultural 
and religious movement in Xinjiang, combined with the end of Soviet 
political domination in Central Asia, has led the central government 
once again to impose increasingly tight restrictions on religious 
worship and practice in the region. The number of schools and mosques 
forced to close is rapidly increasing, displaying the strong 
similarities between the PRC's treatment of this region and Tibet.
  Amnesty International reports that torture of political prisoners in 
XUAR is systematic and that new and particularly cruel methods of 
torture are used that are not known to be used elsewhere in China. The 
XUAR is the only region in China where political prisoners are known to 
be executed. They have been executed for offenses related to opposition 
activities, street protests or clashes with security forces. As true in 
other parts of the PRC, the death penalty is also applicable for a wide 
range of offenses, including non violent ones such as economic and drug 
related crimes. There are two reasons why this abuse is so much worse 
than in other areas of China. First, its history of independence and 
proximity to free countries, and second is the fact that the rest of 
the world seems to have forgotten them.
  Amnesty International is calling on the Chinese government to 
establish a special commission to investigate human rights violations 
and economic, social, and cultural needs of the region. I want to join 
in this call, and demand that the Chinese government stop treating its 
citizens this way. The international community must be made aware of 
these atrocities and it is time for us to stand up and let the Uighurs 
know that the world has not forgotten them, and the Chinese government 
can not continue with this type of behavior.

                          ____________________