By LINZHI SHI
Washington – China in recent months has been arresting, and in some cases executing, religious and political dissidents on charges of engaging in terrorism.
The government says the executions are meant to subdue the threat of separatists in Tibet and Xinjiang province — the latter is home to most of China’s large Muslim minority — and argues the effort is similar to the U.S.-led campaign against Islamic terrorists.
Speaking last week at the Chinese Embassy in Washington, Xiaowen Ye, director of the State Administration of Religious Affairs, likened two Tibetan dissidents to Osama bin Laden, arguing they had used religion to carry out terrorist acts.
The two Tibetans, Tenzin Deleg Rimpoche and Lobsang Dondup, were recently convicted of masterminding a series of bombings in southwest China in the past two years. According to Ye, one police officer was killed and a dozen civilians were hurt in the five bombings, including one in a downtown square in Chengdu last April.
Since the Sept. 11 attacks, Beijing has used charges of “engaging in terrorist activists” against Muslim Uighur separatists in Xinjiang, in the far west of the country.
Members of this Muslim Uighur group, who call themselves the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, have been fighting the central government for a decade to establish an independent homeland.
The Chinese government released a report last year saying the group was financed and supported by bin Laden.
The report, issued by China’s State Council, asserted that Uighur separatist groups were responsible for more than 200 terrorist incidents in Xinjiang from 1990 to 2001, resulting in the deaths of 162 people. No separatist groups have claimed responsibility for the acts. However, the Bush administration has since added the East Turkestan Islamic Movement to its list of terrorist organizations.
Tibetan executed
The government has now broadened the charge of “engaging in terrorist activities” to include Tibetan minority and political dissidents.
In a closed trial in December, 52-year-old Tibetan monk Tenzin Deleg received a suspended death sentence. But 27-year-old Lobsang, a follower, was given a capital sentence and executed in January when his appeal was denied.
Tenzin Deleg is a loyal adherent of the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader. Considered a “living Buddha,” Tenzin Deleg is beloved by his followers in Litang County in the southwestern hinterlands. Some followers suspect it was his outspoken attitude and large following, rather than the reported bombings, that led to his detention.
The harsh penalties sparked an outcry from human rights groups, who charged Beijing was taking advantage of the global campaign against terrorism to justify its latest crackdown.
U.N. may study issue
“China hijacked the terrorism issue and used [it] to justify its repression of religious freedom and ethnic minorities,” said Mike Jendrzejczyk, Washington director of Human Rights Watch’s Asia division. “It’s a very worrying trend. For years, China has used its anti-subversion legislation to try to repress dissidents. Now it’s adding to that anti-terrorism to crack down and justify [it] on terrorism grounds.”
Jendrzejczyk said he hopes the U.N. Commission on Human Rights will examine the issue when it convenes in Geneva on March 17.
Defending Beijing’s position, Ye argued the punishment of the two Tibetans is aimed at protecting religious freedom in China.
“The constitution of China provides for the freedom of religious beliefs for Chinese citizens,” Ye said. Showing reporters dozens of bloody photos taken at the bombing sites, he said it does not permit its citizens to use religious affairs as an excuse to undermine public order or cause people harm.
Last month, a leading Chinese democracy activist was convicted by a Chinese court of espionage and “organizing and leading a terrorist group,” the official Xinhua News Agency reported, at one of the first major political trials held under a new party leadership.
Bingzhang Wang, 55, the founder of the Free China Movement, was sentenced to life in prison after a closed one-day trial by a court in Shenzhen, a city near Hong Kong. Wang was “kidnapped” by an unknown group during a trip to Vietnam last June and was arrested in South China six months later. This is the first time Beijing has convicted a political dissident on charges of terrorism.
Observers consider Wang’s sentence is one of the harshest against a dissident in recent years.
Qing Liu, chairman of New York-based Human Rights in China, said he doubts Chinese officials were following the law when dealing with these cases.
“The Chinese authorities didn’t provide enough evidence to convict the defendants,” Liu said. “The trial is kind of operating in a dark box. There is no objective third party who is available to check.”
Ye said Chinese courts have followed legal procedures and provided the defendants with attorneys. He said the men confessed their “crimes,” a charge human rights advocates are wary about given documented brutality by Chinese police and prison guards.
