Two More Uyghurs Get Life Sentences [-Does Cambodia still deserve a seat at the UNSC???]

Top row: Three of the four Uyghurs sentenced to life imprisonment, from left, Mutellip Mamut, Nurahmet Kudret and Islam Urayim. Bottom row: Ilyar Hamut (jailed for 20 years), Musa Muhamad (17 years), Helil Abdugheni (16 years) and Abduqadir Abdugheni (16 years).

More details emerge on the Uyghur asylum seekers deported to China by Cambodia.

2012-01-27
Radio Free Asia

Chinese authorities have sent another two Uyghurs to life imprisonment after Cambodia deported them to China, family members and lawyers said Friday, as more details emerged regarding 21 Uyghur asylum seekers who were forcibly sent home.

News of the sentence came a day after it was reported that two Uyghurs from the same group had been ordered to spend the rest of their life in prison in punishments meted out in secret and described as severe by rights groups.

The four and 12 others, who were ordered jail up to 20 months, faced charges of splittism, terrorism and illegal travel.

The Uyghurs from China’s volatile Xinjiang region had fled to Cambodia more than two years ago and sought asylum in the Southeast Asian state following ethnic riots involving the minority Uyghurs and majority Han Chinese in the region's capital Urumqi in July 2009.

Two Uighurs deported from Cambodia to China get life

Fri Jan 27, 2012

BEIJING (Reuters) - China has jailed two Muslim Uighurs deported from Cambodia for life, Radio Free Asia reported on Friday, showing no sign of loosening its grip on far-western Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region which holds rich deposits of oil and gas.

The sentences -- and deadly clashes this week between police in Sichuan and ethnic Tibetans -- come at a sensitive time for China for whom ensuring stability ahead of a leadership transition later this year is a top priority.

They also precede a visit to the United States by Vice President Xi Jinping, who is seen as China's leader-in-waiting and who could come under criticism for the government's handling of the unrest.

Cambodia, the recipient of increasingly large amounts of Chinese investment and trade, was sharply rebuked by human rights groups for deporting the asylum seekers.

Two days after Cambodia deported the Muslim Uighurs in December 2009, Chinese Vice President Xi visited Phnom Penh and signed 14 trade deals worth $850 million.

Chinese police foiled terror plot targeting Beijing Olympics, official says

The Canadian Press

BEIJING — A senior Communist Party official says Chinese police captured and killed alleged Islamic terrorists who were plotting attacks targeting the Beijing Olympics.

Wang Lequan, the top official in the western region of Xinjiang, says today a Jan. 27 raid in the regional capital Urumqi had seized materials that showed the plotters' purpose was specifically to sabotage the staging of the Games.

The Global Times newspaper published by the Communist Party earlier reported the group had planned bombings and other violent terrorist incidents on Feb. 5, the last business day before the start of the Lunar New Year holiday, but the paper had made no mention of the Olympics.

The paper said police confiscated guns, homemade bombs, training materials and extremist religious ideological materials during the raid, in which two members of the gang were killed and 15 arrested.

Wang says the group had acted on orders from a Uighur separatist group based in Pakistan and Afghanistan called the East Turkestan Islamic Movement - a group that has been labelled a terrorist organization by the United Nations.

China has ratcheted up anti-terror preparations ahead of the August Games, with the country's top police official last year saying terrorism is the biggest threat facing the event.