An exiled Chinese Muslim activist has called for an independent investigation into a raid by Chinese forces on an alleged terrorist training camp.
Rebiya Kadeer said China had not produced any evidence that the 18 suspects killed and 17 captured were terrorists or, as Beijing says, had connections to al-Qaeda.
Kadeer, who has lived in exile in the US since 2005, said she doubted a Chinese statement that the alleged militants were members of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM).
She said the group was considered by most analysts to have "ceased to exist" since late 2003.
At around that time, ETIM’s purported leader was killed in a clash with Pakistani security forces.
Kadeer was herself jailed by Chinese authorities for eight years in 2000 for sending press clippings overseas – a crime which was said to "endanger national security".
She was freed after serving five years of her term amid international pressure from human rights groups.
China has said it is still hunting further suspected terrorists still at large following the raid on the alleged terrorist camp on January 5.
The raid took place in the mountainous Pamirs plateau region, part of the Muslim-majority region of Xinjiang which borders Central Asia.
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China says its forces are continuing to hunt
further suspected terrorists [Reuters] |
Officials said they found a cache of hand grenades, guns and handmade explosives at the site.
Commenting on the raid, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said on Tuesday that Beijing had "evidence that East Turkestan groups are connecting with international terrorist forces and plan to conduct terrorist activities".
Oil-rich Xinjiang is home to some 8 million Uighurs, a Turkic, largely Islamic people, many of whom resent the growing Han Chinese presence in the region and government controls on their religion and culture.
China has accused several Uighur groups of using violence to push for an independent state.
However, human rights groups say Beijing has used that and its support for the US-led "war on terror" to justify a crackdown on Uighurs characterised by arbitrary arrests and closed-door trials.