China tries seven students on separatist charges

Tohti, an outspoken scholar from China’s Uighur minority, jailed in September. (Andy Wong/AP).

AP, Beijing – Seven minority students working for a website run by a prominent Muslim Uighur scholar recently convicted of separatism have been tried on the same charge in China’s far-west region of Xinjiang, a rights lawyer has said.

Li Fangping, a defence lawyer for the economics professor Ilham Tohti, said the students were certain to be found guilty by the Urumqi intermediate people’s court, the same court that sentenced their teacher to life imprisonment in September. The economist is known for his outspoken criticism of the government and its ethnic policy.

“The question is how many years these students will be jailed,” Li said. “But we don’t expect them to be jailed as long as their teacher.”

Repeated calls to the court were unanswered. The court also provided no information on the students’ trials on its official website or social media accounts.

Li said the students were charged with separatism for their involvement with Uighur Online, a website run by Tohti but later shut down by the government. Some also were accused of attending religious meetings in Hong Kong, the lawyer added.

Tohti told the court earlier that he set up the website to give the minority Uighur people a voice and help the Han Chinese people understand the former. But the court ruled that he used the site to incite ethnic hatred.

At least three students Perhat Halmurat, Shohret Nijat, and Luo Yuwei have confessed on state television that, while working for Uighur Online, they were instructed by Tohti to run articles that could exacerbate ethnic tensions. The other four students are Mutellip Imin, Abduqeyum Ablimit, Atikem Rozi and Akbar Imin. Rozi had spoken publicly about how the government had refused to issue her with a passport, a common complaint among Uighurs.

Supporters of Tohti say the scholar and his students are being punished for his criticisms of the government.

Barack Obama has urged Beijing to free the economist.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/25/china-tries-seven-students-separatist-charges-uighur

Turkey moves to help 300 Uighurs in Thailand

World Bulletin/News Desk – 300 Uighurs from China have been caught in Thailand with fake passports – if charged they will be faced with the death penalty. The Department of Foreign Affairs in Turkey has moved to enable them to return to Turkey.

In the even that the Uighurs are not accepted into ‘Turkey they will either given the death penalty, if they escape they may possibly be victims of human kidnapping or organ trafficking.

With their land taken away from them and persecuted for their religious beliefs, the Uighurs have had no choice but to seek refuge in Turkey. Having lived in the Thai forests under difficult conditions for the past few days, the 300 people from East Turkestan who escaped Chinese persecution sought refuge in Turkey.

The group, most of them being women and children were initially assisted by human traffickers into Thailand, en route to Turkey via Malaysia. The Thai police caught them in the forests, thirsty and hungry. If the Thai police confirm that they are indeed Chinese citizens, the 300 Uighur Turks will be sent back to China. This indirectly means that they will be sent to their death or possibly into the hands of human traffickers.

Those who have been caught, have been confirmed to be holding fake passports.

Foreign Affairs to Intervene

The Department of Foreign Affairs have moved to act quickly. Establishing contact with the Thai Government, they have outlined that they will be looked after in Turkey and have requested them to be sent to Turkey.

Prime Minister Davutoglu has explained that he has been following the matter closely. According to information obtained from Foreign Affairs, if there are no bureaucratic issues, the Uighur Turks will be brought to Turkey in a matter of days.

Without the intervention of Turkey, the Chinese government would have been executed by firing squad and this would be the second Boraltan tragedy that would have taken place.

In 1945 in order to escape from the Stalinist persecution146 Azeri Turks had sought refuge in Turkey. The Boraltan commander had notified Ankara of the situation and were told to free the Azeri Turks. Upon hearing this the commander surrendered the Turks to the Russian army who shot them by firing squad at the Boraltan bridge.

http://www.worldbulletin.net/turkey/149207/turkey-moves-to-help-300-uighurs-in-thailand

7 students of convicted scholar Ilham Tohti standing trial, lawyer says

A rights lawyer in China said that seven students of the prominent Uyghur scholar Ilham Tohti, who was sentenced to a life in prison for separatism in September, are currently facing the same charges in court.

AP News reports:

Li Fangping, a defense lawyer for the economics professor Ilham Tohti, said the trials for the students began Tuesday in the Urumqi Intermediate People’s Court in the far west region of Xinjiang. The same court sentenced their teacher to life in prison in September.

Li says they are charged with separatism, and at least three students have confessed on state television that they worked for a website that Ilham Tohti set up to discuss Uighur issues but which was accused of fanning ethnic hatred.

The 44-year-old academic, who’s considered a moderate voice outside of China, was charged with organizing and leading a separatist group, his lawyer previously said. He was apprehended by police in Beijing last January and brought to Xinjiang, where he was convicted on September 23.

In court, officials presented material showing Tohti’s views on Uyghur identity and ethnic policies in China, and used material from his classroom lectures and from his website, Uyghur Online, which he ran from 2005 to 2008, according to the New York Times.

Rights activists insist that Tohti was handed an unreasonably harsh penalty and that he was being punished merely for criticizing the government.

Last Friday, the Xinjiang high court rejected the scholar’s appeal against the conviction, and upheld his life sentence.

http://shanghaiist.com/2014/11/25/7-students-of-convicted-scholar-ilham-tohti-standing-trial.php

Six Months After Demolition of Homes, Uyghurs Await Compensation

Radio Free Asia

2014-11-24

A group of mostly ethnic minority Uyghurs who claim their homes in China’s northwestern Xinjiang region were unfairly demolished by local authorities six months ago are still awaiting compensation that has been promised by the authorities, according to one homeowner.

The homes of the seven residents of Hobuksar Mongol Autonomous County (Hebekesaier, in Chinese) in Tarbaghatay prefecture were destroyed in May because officials said they had no proper ownership documents although the residents had bought the property from local authorities who did not provide them with official deeds, homeowner Seypidin Sidik said.

Sidik said that his elder brother who tried to defend his house from being demolished was beaten until he lost consciousness while his wife was briefly detained.

He told RFA’s Uyghur Service that local urban planning officials agreed to pay him 310,000 yuan (U.S. $50,466) for destroying his 400-square-meter (4,306-square-feet) home after the seven went on a relentless campaign to seek redress from the authorities.

They were given small low cost rental apartments as a temporary measure and forced to sign pledges by the authorities that they had sold their homes.

“It has been half a year since my wife and I moved into a small apartment, and after negotiating with the urban planning office several times, it agreed to offer me a 310,000 yuan payment for my destroyed home,” he said.

“Without any other choice, I was forced to sign that I had sold my house and garden to them,” he said. “Even though I accepted the offer, they still have not paid me the 310,000 yuan.”

‘Just a signature’

Hobuksar County has a multi-ethnic population that includes Han Chinese, Uyghurs, Kazakhs and Mongols, Sidik said.

He said he had bought his house in December 2008, although he had lived there for more than 20 years.

At the time, a Han Chinese official who was head of the local urban planning office endorsed the sale of the homes to him and six of his Uyghur and Kazakh neighbors.

“The paper that we got contained a statement from the head of the urban planning office that he had sold the house to us, with his signature on it,” Sidik said. “When we asked for the legal documents, such as the land and house certificates, he told us he would provide them later.”

But the official never did provide the documents and eventually moved to another office in a different location, Sidik said.

Destruction crew

About a dozen Han Chinese from the local urban planning office appeared unexpectedly on his property on May 6 with tractors and bulldozers while he had gone to the regional capital Urumqi, and his wife was at work at a salt factory 300 kilometers (186 miles) away.

When his elder brother, Ablajan Sidik, and his wife asked the officials to stop the demolition work long enough so that they could retrieve his personal property, about five or six of the urban planning workers dragged him into a van and severely beat him until he lost consciousness, Seypidin Sidik said.

“My youngest brother and the wife of my elder brother attempted to rescue him, but they were then locked up in another van and left there,” he said.

Authorities beat the other brother and detained his wife, but released her a few hours later, he said.

Ablajan Sidik’s Han Chinese attackers took him to the county hospital “because they were afraid that they would be held responsible for his death,” he said.

He had sustained injuries to his chest and heart, requiring two major surgeries, Seypidin Sidik said.

The urban planning office paid 380,000 yuan (U.S. $61,900) for Ablajan Sidik’s medical treatment, but refused to accept responsibility for his injuries, Seypidin Sidik said.

Uyghurs in Xinjiang claim to have long suffered ethnic discrimination, oppressive religious controls, and continued poverty and joblessness, amid an influx of majority Han Chinese into the region.

Reported by Eset Sulaiman for RFA’s Uyghur Service. Translated by Eset Sulaiman. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

7 Students of Jailed Economist Are Put on Trial in Western China

The New York Times

By EDWARD WONG
NOV. 25, 2014

BEIJING — Seven students of Ilham Tohti, an imprisoned ethnic Uighur professor, went on trial on Tuesday in the western Chinese region of Xinjiang on charges of being members of a separatist group, said Li Fangping, a lawyer for Mr. Tohti.

Mr. Tohti was convicted in September of separatism and sentenced to life in prison, despite outrage from foreign officials and human rights groups who said the professor was being persecuted. The same court in the regional capital, Urumqi, put the students on trial. They had attended Minzu University of China in Beijing, where Mr. Tohti taught economics.

Mr. Tohti was an outspoken critic of Chinese policies in Xinjiang, where many ethnic Uighurs complain of harsh rule by the ethnic Han, the dominant group in China.

Of the seven indicted students, six are ethnic Uighurs and one is a member of the Yi ethnic group. Mr. Li said some had pleaded guilty in the hopes of receiving lenient prison sentences.

As of Tuesday evening, the court had not announced verdicts.

Mia Li contributed research.

China opens separatism trial for students of jailed Uighur scholar

Reuters

By Michael Martina
BEIJING Tue Nov 25, 2014 6:51am EST

(Reuters) - China opened separatism trials for seven students of jailed Uighur scholar Ilham Tohti on Tuesday, a human rights lawyer said, the latest developments in a legal drama in the Xinjiang region that has drawn criticism from the West.

Tohti, China's most prominent advocate for the rights of Muslim Uighurs, lost his appeal against a life sentence for separatism last week. [ID:nL3N0RP2X3]

During his trial, he rejected the prosecution's evidence and said statements against him by student volunteers who had worked on a website he managed were made under pressure from authorities.

Li Fangping, the lawyer who defended Tohti, said seven students went on trial in Xinjiang's capital Urumqi on charges of "splitting the country".

"I heard from their lawyer that today the trial formally started," Li said, adding that he could not say who represented the students for fear of pressure from authorities on their families.

Li said the seven students were separated into two trials, one conducted for six defendants in Chinese and a second held in the Uighur language for a single student.

"Normally speaking they are looking at five to 15 years (in prison)," Li said, adding that it was unclear if the trial would finish in a single day.

The United States has called for the release of Tohti and his students. The Washington-based Uyghur American Association last week said it was concerned about the trials given an "atmosphere of retribution" in Xinjiang.

The government has blamed a series of violent attacks in which hundreds of people have been killed on Islamist militants from Xinjiang who it says want to establish an independent state there called East Turkestan.

Many of Tohti's students have been detained since January. China has made no mention of the cases and has not provided names of the students who have gone on trial.

However, rights groups have identified a number of the students who have disappeared, including Mutellip Imin, who had helped Tohti translate articles and also chronicled online an earlier 79-day detention by authorities.

Tohti, who taught at Beijing's Minzu University, had repeatedly criticized the government for not giving Xinjiang and its Uighurs more autonomy. Prosecutors said Tohti had "bewitched and coerced young ethnic students" on the website he ran called Uighurbiz.net.

But the 45-year-old economics professor said he never associated with any terrorist organization or foreign-based group and "relied only on pen and paper to diplomatically request" human rights and legal rights for Uighurs.

(Reporting by Michael Martina; Editing by Nick Macfie)

China announces net results of Xinjiang ‘strike hard’ campaign

ucanews.com

November 25, 2014

Chinese authorities have busted 115 terrorist cells in restive Xinjiang during the past six months, state media reported on Tuesday, part of a crackdown on Islamic separatist violence that has led to unprecedented restrictions on minority Muslim Uyghurs.

Halfway through a one-year “strike hard” campaign in Xinjiang that the state-run China Daily said was “stopping most terrorist attacks”, authorities have shut down 171 “religious training sites” and arrested 238 people.

Xinjiang authorities have opened 44 cases of people training in the use of explosives over the internet and 294 cases in which violent footage was distributed, it added, without giving further details.

Meanwhile, more than 18,000 documents, 2,600 DVDs and 777 computer memory sticks “related to religious extremism” have been seized in Xinjiang over the past six months.

President Xi Jinping announced the campaign using “extremely tough measures and extraordinary methods” on May 23, the day after Uyghur separatists ploughed into the main market in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang, leaving 44 people dead as they lobbed explosives. It was the third deadly attack by suspected Uyghur separatists in a two month period.

In response, Beijing poured extra police and security personnel into Xinjiang, China’s largest region where an estimated 12 million minority Muslim Uyghurs live, many of them in remote areas near China’s borders with Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The government’s campaign has seen the return of mass trials in China for the first time since the 1990s and has coincided with a surge in death sentences and executions of Uyghurs — nearly 40 people have been sentenced to death and at least 20 executed since May.

William Nee, a China researcher at Amnesty International, said that Chinese legal reforms had led to improvements in recent years but this year’s campaign in Xinjiang was bucking the trend.

“You do have people who are committing acts of violence against innocent civilians. That’s not to dismiss the government’s need to care about security,” he said. “But from a human rights point of view it has been a very troubling campaign.”

Rights groups including Amnesty say it remains unclear whether Uyghurs charged on terrorism and separatism related charges are permitted basic legal rights including defense counsel. Chinese lawyers say they have been denied the right to defend Uyghurs in such cases.

Earlier this month, a mass trial in the mainly Uyghur city of Kashgar resulted in 22 people convicted on charges including disturbing public order and “illegal preaching” with prison sentences of up to 16 years.

During the past six months, China’s state-run media has reported that religious teaching to under-18s has effectively been banned as Islamic schools have been closed.

Around Kashgar, principals at more than 2,000 kindergartens signed a pledge last month to “defend schools against the infiltration of religion” while discouraging Islamic teachings at home, according to the Global Times, which is close to the Communist Party.

Children under 18 have also been banned from entering mosques, and there were reportedly increased restrictions on people trying to observe Ramadan this year.

“They are going after unlawful religious practices but what they define as lawful is very tightly controlled by the state,” said Nee.

State media this week pointed to the success of the government’s pre-emptive campaign against the related “evils” of separatism, religious extremism and terrorism”.

Although China saw a slowdown in terrorist attacks directly after the campaign started, in the past four months at least 168 people — including alleged terrorists, police and civilians — have died in violent attacks blamed on Uyghur separatists.

China suffered its most deadly terrorist incident in years when violence in remote Shache County in late July left 96 people dead, according to state media, with overseas Uyghur groups claiming the toll was much higher.

The government has paired its harsh anti-terrorism campaign with plans for major economic development in a bid to quell discontent in one of China’s poorest regions by spending billions of dollars creating a new ‘Silk Road’ of cross-border trade and investment in Xinjiang.

Jiang Zhaoyang, an ethnic affairs expert in Beijing, said that the government needed to find a better balance between economic development and harsh punishment if it hoped to reverse the cycle of violence.

“Actions should be taken delicately,” he said. “Extremist thought and general discontent should be carefully distinguished, and this ‘strike-hard’ campaign should be more precisely targeted.”

Send Uighurs back home, says China

Around 200 refugees believed to be ethnic Uighur people from Xinjiang were rescued from human traffickers in March, and have been held at a detention centre in Songkhla province while talks attempt to solve their case. (AP photo)

Associated Press – The refugees’ claim to be Turkish cannot be confirmed and they refuse to cooperate with Chinese authorities with proper identification, said Qin Jian, the consul in Songkhla.

“They have been uncooperative and refused to communicate at all,” Mr Qin said.

The refugees are likely fearful of being mistreated in China if they are returned, although Mr Qin said such concerns are unwarranted.

“If they do not have criminal records back in China, there will be no prosecution,” the consul said.

Tensions between minority Uighurs and majority Han have left about 400 people dead in the past 20 months.

Beijing has blamed the violence on terrorism, separatism and extreme religion and has harshly cracked down in the Uighurs’ far northwestern home region.

Human rights groups say the heavy-handedness is further alienating the Uighurs.

In March, Thai immigration officers rescued 220 men, women and children held by presumed human traffickers at a remote camp.

However, there has been no confirmation of their Turkish identity since staff from the Turkish embassy met with the group, Mr Qin said.

Dozens of men in the group have been identified as Uighurs and the others in the group are also believed to be of the Chinese minority, based on physical similarities, Mr Qin said.

Since March, the suspected Uighurs have lived in a Songkhla detention centre, but have provided little information to authorities, probably to try to confuse their origin and avoid being returned to China. (Reuters photo)

The Washington-based Uyghur American Association has called upon the Thai government not to return them to China but to allow them access to the United Nations’ refugee agency to request asylum.

“Uighurs have been forcibly returned to the hands of their persecutors in the past with dire results,” said Alim Seytoff, president of the association.

Mr Seytoff said the increasing numbers of Uighur refugees is an indication of Beijing’s repression of the Muslim minority.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/general/443774/send-uighurs-back-home-says-china

China wants Uighur refugees back from Thailand

BEIJING (AP) — More than 200 refugees detained in Thailand earlier this year are believed to be Chinese Uighurs and should be repatriated, a Chinese consul said, dismissing concerns they will be mistreated.

The refugees’ claim to be Turkish cannot be confirmed and they refuse to cooperate with Chinese authorities on proper identification, said Qin Jian, the consul in Songkhla.

“They have been uncooperative and refused to communicate at all,” Qin said.

The refuges are likely fearful of being mistreated in China if they are returned, although Qin said such concerns are unwarranted.

“If they do not have criminal records back in China, there will be no prosecution,” the consul said.

Tensions between minority Uighurs and the majority Han Chinese have left about 400 people dead in the past 20 months. Beijing has blamed the violence on terrorism, separatism and extreme religion and has harshly cracked down in the Uighurs’ far northwestern home region. But human rights groups say the heavy-handedness is further alienating the Uighurs.

In March, Thai immigration officers rescued 220 men, women and children held by presumed human traffickers at a remote camp. Qin said there has been no confirmation of their Turkish identity after staff from the Turkish embassy met with the group.

Dozens of men have been identified as Chinese Uighurs and the others in the group are believed to be based on their physical features, habits and customs, Qin said. He declined to elaborate.

The Washington-based Uyghur American Association has called upon the Thai government not to return them to China but allow them access to the United Nations’ refugee agency for asylum requests.

“Uyghurs have been forcibly returned into the hands of their persecutors in the past with dire results,” said Alim Seytoff, president of the association in a statement.

Seytoff said China’s economic and political leverage with other governments leaves genuine refugees unprotected and that the increasing numbers of Uighur refugees is an indication of Beijing’s repression of the Muslim minority.

Thai officials have said their investigation is not yet complete.

http://townhall.com/news/world/2014/11/15/china-wants-uighur-refugees-back-from-thailand-n1919091

East Turkestan: Scores of Uyghurs Imprisoned for ‘Illegal Religious Activities’

The Chinese authorities’ persecution and crackdown on the religious freedom of the Uyghurs is continuing, as 21 people have received jail sentences for ‘illegal religious activities’. Muslim religious leaders in particular have been targeted, with many jailed for ‘preaching illegally’ or forcibly ejected from their positions.

Below is an article published by Radio Free Asia:

Authorities in northwestern China’s restive Xinjiang region have sentenced to prison nearly two dozen Uyghurs for illegal religious activities and other infractions in a move condemned by Uyghur exile groups as part of the persecution against the ethnic minority group.

Twenty-two Uyghurs, including Muslim religious leaders accused of preaching illegally, received jail terms ranging from five to 16 years at a public sentencing in the western Xinjiang town of Kashgar, according to Chinese state media.

Some of the religious leaders sentenced had been relieved of their positions, the reports said. Other Uyghurs were accused of inciting ethnic hatred, using superstition to undermine the law, starting quarrels to provoke trouble, and rape.

The World Uyghur Congress, an international organization of exiled Uyghur groups headquartered in Germany, condemned the sentencing and accused Chinese authorities of religious repression and rights abuses.

Dilxat Raxit, the organization’s spokesman, told RFA’s Uyghur Service that Chinese authorities timed the crackdown to coincide with the Nov. 11 anniversary of the founding of the East Turkestan republics in 1933 and 1945.

Many Uyghurs refer to Xinjiang as East Turkestan, because the region had come under Chinese control following two short-lived East Turkestan republics in the 1930s and 1940s.

“The Chinese authorities have chosen this sensitive time with a specific political purpose, because today is the anniversary for the local Uyghurs to have established two republics,” he said Tuesday.

He also said authorities decided to crack down on the Uyghurs while Beijing hosted the leadership meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum to send a message to the international community that it has no plans to change governing policies in Xinjiang.

“Through the high-profile sentencing, the Chinese government is declaring to the international community that a policy of repression against Uyghurs will continue,” he said. “They [government officials] will not change."

Authorities have intensified security measures on the ground in the regional capital Urumqi as well, according to local sources.

“On major streets in Urumqi, there are armed police and special police officers holding guns at guard posts,” a resident surnamed Zhang told RFA.

“In addition, there are so-called stability maintenance personnel stationed on the streets, wearing red armbands. At bus stops, the authorities have set up fixed security booths.”

The Xinjiang region, home to millions of Turkic-speaking Uyghurs, has seen an upsurge in violence that has left hundreds dead, and which China has blamed on terrorists and Islamist insurgents seeking to establish an independent state.

Rights groups accuse Chinese authorities of heavy-handed rule there, including violent police raids on Uyghur households, restrictions on Islamic practices, and curbs on the culture and language of the Uyghur people.

The latest crackdown is believed to be part of the regional government’s yearlong campaign, which began in May, in response to a series of deadly attacks that Chinese authorities have blamed on religious extremists.

East Turkestan: Forced Urban Migrants Left with No Place to Pray

The Chinese government has failed to deliver on promises made to urban migrants of the Uyghur community, having yet to build mosques in the city of Karamay for the population that they have re-located from outlying areas. Those members of the Uyghur Muslim community who are among the urban migrants have been without a place of worship now for six years. The rural communities where many of these Uyghurs originally lived have, furthermore, now been settled by ethnic Han Chinese, leaving them no option but to stay in Karamay.

Below is an article published by Radio Free Asia

Thousands of Uyghur oil workers taken from outlying districts into Xinjiang’s [East Turkestan] Karamay city to enlarge the area’s urban population have been left without places of worship after Chinese  authorities failed to make good on promises to build mosques near their new homes, sources said.

Large numbers of Han Chinese and other immigrant workers have now taken over their former homes  in towns surrounding the oil refineries—some as far away as 60 kilometers (approximately 37 miles)  outside of Karamay—though some Uyghurs relocated by authorities into the city still commute to their  old jobs, sources said.

Local authorities began to move residents from the refinery sites in 2005, with the work of relocation  into the prefecture-level city in northern Xinjiang still ongoing, sources said.

Further details regarding policy directives behind the move were not immediately available.

“It has been six years since we were moved to our new locations in the city, and we still have no place to  pray,” Abduqeyim Qarihajim, the former imam, or religious leader, of the No. 3 Petroleum Plant located  outside Karamay, told RFA’s Uyghur Service.

More than 10,000 people are now set to move into new apartments in Karamay city, Qarihajim said,  with at least 2,000 of these classed by Chinese authorities as “minorities.”

“[But] we have no mosques, and we cannot pray in other places for fear of being branded as illegal  religious activists, so we are praying in our homes,” he said.

Applications have already been made and funds raised to build new centres for prayer, he said.“But so  far, we have not had any answer.”

“This is creating a lot of problems for people—especially when it comes to performing rituals like  funerals,” he said.

Prayers at the No. 3 Petroleum Plant mosque outside Karamay would in earlier years have drawn large  numbers of worshippers, a senior manager of No. 3 Plant named Hosanjan told RFA.

“But right now, we have from 60 to 70 people who come to pray five times a day,” he said.

“For Friday prayers, we have from 150 to 200 people,” he added.

“Most of the people of No. 3 Plant have been moved to the city, but no mosques have been built for  them yet,” Hosanjan said.

Workers from many other locations have now also been moved to Karamay city to enlarge the city’s  population, with lower-level plant officials promising that mosques would be built for them near their  new homes, Hosanjan said.

“But no written agreements were ever made,” he said.

“I am a government official, but I also represent the people,” Hosanjan said. “And though the people  have tried their best to get permission to build mosques, this problem has still not been resolved.”

The Xinjiang region, which is home to millions of Turkic-speaking Uyghurs, has seen an upsurge in  violence that has left hundreds dead since 2012, and which China has blamed on terrorists and Islamist  insurgents seeking to establish an independent state.

But rights groups accuse the Chinese authorities of heavy-handed rule in Xinjiang, including violent  police raids on Uyghur households, restrictions on Islamic practices, and curbs on the culture and  language of the Uyghur people.

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China opens first leg of high-speed railway in Xinjiang

A view of a stretch of the new high-speed rail line between Xinjiang's capital Urumqi and Turpan, June 3, 2014.

CREDIT: REUTERS/MICHAEL MARTINA

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(Reuters) - China opened the first stretch of a new high-speed railway in the western region of Xinjiang on Sunday, a milestone in the central government's efforts to promote economic development in restive hinterlands and bind them closer to the rest of China.

The 530 km (330 miles) stretch between Xinjiang's capital, Urumqi, and Hami is the first stage of the 1,775 km (1,100 miles) Lanxin railway connecting Urumqi to Lanzhou, the capital of central western Gansu Province.

The official Xinhua news agency reported on Sunday that the full length of the passenger railway is on schedule to open by the end of the year. Trains on the Urumqi-Hami leg could reach more than 200 kph (120 mph), halving the travel time between the two cities to three hours.

Xinjiang, a sprawling, resource-rich region that is home to China's Muslim Uighur minority, has been beset by worsening ethnic violence in recent years but remains a critical part of China's economic strategy.

Over the past year President Xi Jinping has spelled out ambitious plans to open China's west and build a "New Silk Road" network of intercontinental land routes and maritime lines that would connect China to its Central and Southeast Asian neighbours. He announced a $40 billion fund to invest in infrastructure projects earlier this month.

China has also been pouring money into Xinjiang's development in an effort to quell growing discontent among Uighurs, many of whom chafe at government restrictions on their cultural and religious practices as well as their lack of economic opportunity.

The government, which has warned of a growing threat of Islamist militants in the region, said in June it was confident of guaranteeing the railway's security despite a bomb attack at an Urumqi railway station in April that killed three people and wounded 79.

(Reporting by Gerry Shih; Editing by Paul Tait)

China's Xi - China economic growth to be sustainable, balanced: Xinhua

China's President Xi Jinping and his wife Peng Liyuan arrive at the Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane as he takes part in the G20 summit November 15, 2014.

CREDIT: REUTERS/PETER PARKS/POOL

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(Reuters) - Chinese President Xi Jinping said on SaturdayChina's economy will maintain strong, sustainable and balanced growth, state media reported.

Xi also said China will provide more demand and investment opportunities for the globaleconomy as it undergoes structural reforms that foster opportunities for growth, according to the official Xinhua news agency.

China's economy grew in the third quarter at its slowest pace since the global financial crisis, sparking concern that the world's second largest economy is faltering as the government tries to make it more driven by domestic consumption and less by exports and investment.

Xi made the comments while at a two-day meeting of the G20 in Brisbane, Australia.

Using his latest catchphrase, Xi said China's economy has entered a "new normal", there is plenty of growth momentum and development prospects are bright, Xinhua reported.

China will also adopt the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) Special Data Dissemination Standards, Xi announced.

These standards are applied to the release of economic and financial data, aimed at increasing transparency and openness in order to guide countries "that have, or that might seek, access to international capital markets in the provision of their economic and financial data to the public," according to the IMF website.

China's provinces and regions frequently report economic growth much larger than national levels, causing doubts about the way data is compiled in China.

China's government has vowed to tackle false reporting of economic data at the local level, but the sheer size of the country and the large number of local authorities makes this a daunting task.

(Reporting by Paul Carsten; Additional reporting by Koh Gui Qing; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)