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| China-Japan-Koreas |
| China executes Tiananmen attack 'masterminds' |
| 2014-08-25 |
| [USATODAY] China has executed eight people for terrorist crimes, including three men who "criminal masterminded" a deadly attack with a car that crashed near Beijing's Tiananmen Gate last October, China's state-run news agency ...and if you can't believe the state-run news agency who can you believe?... Xinhua said late Saturday. The executions were carried out in Xinjiang, a troubled province in China's northwest that borders Pakistain, Afghanistan and the Central Asian states. Xinhua did not specify their ethnic group, but the eight executed all had names that suggest they belong to Xinjiang's Uighur people, a mostly Moslem minority whose members have accused Beijing of highly repressive policies toward their religion, language and culture. In the past year, authorities have labeled as "terrorist attacks" a rising number of violent incidents that have occurred mostly in Xinjiang but have spread to other parts of China for the first time. More than 300 people have died, prompting a further security crackdown, hundreds of arrests and dozens of executions that exiled Uighur activists say fuel the violence. The Chinese government accuses foreign terrorist groups of spreading religious extremism online in Xinjiang and encouraging Uighurs to pursue an independent state. Besides the Tiananmen attack in Beijing, Xinhua said the Xinjiang-based cases of those executed included gun-seizing and police assault in Aksu, murder and illegal manufacturing of explosives in Kashgar and the murder of government officials and the establishment of a terrorist organization in Hotan. Last October, a man brought terror to the heart of China's capital when he deliberately drove a car through a crowd of pedestrians near Beijing's Tiananmen Gate, injuring 40 people and killing two. He and his two passengers, his mother and wife, also died when the car burst into flames. Huseyin Guxur, Yusup Wherniyas and Yusup Ehmet "criminal masterminded" that attack, Xinhua said. They had been sentenced to death for "organizing and leading (a) terrorist organization and jeopardizing public security with dangerous means," the news agency said. Dilxat Raxit, front man for the World Uyghur Congress, an exile group, said in an e-mailed statement that the executions were "a typical (case) of justice serving politics." |
| Posted by:Fred |