OnIslam & News Agencies
Monday, 25 August 2014
Last June, 13 Uighur Muslims were sentenced to death over accusations of involvement in terrorist attacks in ×Xinjiang and Beijing's Tiananmen Square.
BEIJING – Eight Uighur Muslims from the Muslim-majority Xinjiang district have been executed by ×Chineseauthorities for allegedly being “masterminds” of a dramatic car crash in the capital's Tiananmen Square in 2013.
"The lawyers, to accomplish political ends, led them to accept ×China's charges, and skirted the causes of the issue," Dilxat Raxit, spokesman of the ×World Uyghur Congress, the largest group of exiled ×Uighurs, told Reuters in an email on Sunday.
"It's a typical case of the law serving political ends."
The group spokesman added that the executed individuals had paid a heavy price but the root causes of the issues were being overlooked.
Three of the executed group "masterminded" the October 2013 attack in the heart of the ×Chinese capital, official news agency ×Xinhuasaid late on Saturday.
A report by China Central Television (CCTV) showed images of police leading into court, and questioning, the individuals who have been executed.
It also showed footage of the ×Tiananmen attack, with a car being driven into the square.
Some of the people executed were blamed for attacks in ×Xinjiang's prefecture of×Aksu, the city of ×Kashgar and the town of Hotan, Xinhua added.
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.
Immediately after last October’s attack, the government has accused Uighur Muslims of plotting Tiananmen Square attacks that left five killed.
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.
Last June, 13 Uighur Muslims were sentenced to death over accusations of involvement in terrorist attacks in Xinjiang and Beijing's Tiananmen Square.
Since 2001, China has conducted a sweeping security crackdown in Xinjiang, further repressing Uighur culture, religious tradition and language.
Xinjiang has been the scene of numerous incidents of unrest in recent years, with the most notable in July 2009 which left nearly 200 people dead.
Chinese authorities have convicted about 200 people, mostly Uighurs, over the riots and sentenced 26 of them to death.
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