Co bedzie dalej w zwiazku z nazwa ronda w Warszawie ?

People's Court had issued ``guiding opinions'' to the trial court and strengthened ``supervision and guidance'' toward the court to ``guarantee'' the trials ``took place in an orderly way in accordance with law.'' \27\ Although defendants reportedly had legal defense at the trials, in advance of the court hearings, authorities in Beijing and the XUAR issued orders dictating the terms upon which lawyers could be involved in cases.\28\ Authorities also reportedly warned lawyers active in human rights defense work against taking the cases.\29\ In at least one set of trials, authorities reportedly violated Article 151(5) of China's Criminal Procedure Law (stipulating that courts shall announce trials involving public prosecutions three days in advance) by failing to provide adequate public notice of the hearings.\30\ Authorities also warned the media against independent reporting on the events.\31\ Trials were also marked by a lack of transparency and apparent failure to publicize many of the judgments, in violation of Article 163 of the Criminal Procedure Law (stipulating that ``[i]n all cases, judgments shall be pronounced publicly'').\32\ XUAR government chairperson Nur Bekri said in March that 198 people involved in 97 cases had been sentenced in the XUAR for crimes committed in July 2009, a figure that appeared to far exceed the number of cases reported as of March 2010 by Chinese media.\33\ [See table below titled Xinjiang Trials for Crimes Committed During the July 2009 Demonstrations and Riots for detailed information.] ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sentencing Ethnic Group Number of Date of Details (Conjectured Trial Date People/Cases Alleged Crime Charges (Number of based on name Appeals people) of defendant) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- October 12, 7 people/ July 5 Intentional 6: death 7 Uyghur October 30, 2009: 2009 3 cases homicide; (executed) All judgments arson; robbery 1: life in upheld. prison ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- October 14, 14 people/3 July 5 and Intentional 3: death 12 Uyghur October 30, 2009: 2009 cases July 7 homicide; (executed) 2 Han All judgments (sentence arson; 3: death + 2- upheld. October 15) robbery; yr reprieve intentional 3: life in injury; prison intentional 5: 5-18 yrs destruction of property ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- December 3, 13 people/5 July 5 Intentional 5: death 11 Uyghur, of December 19, 2009 cases homicide; 2: life in names 2009: Some cases robbery; prison provided appealed. arson; 6: 10-20 yrs Judgments intentional upheld. injury ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- December 4, 7 people/5 July 5-7 Intentional 3: death 5 Uyghur December 19, 2009 cases homicide; 1: life in 2 Han 2009: Some cases intentional prison appealed. injury; arson; 3: 10-18 yrs Judgments carrying out upheld. explosions ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- December 22 22 people/5 July 5 Intentional 5: death 22 Uyghur N/A and 23, 2009 cases homicide; 5: death + 2- robbery yr reprieve 8: life in prison 4: 12-15 yrs ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- January 25, 13 people/5 N/A N/A 4: death 6 Uyghur, of N/A 2010 cases 1: death + 2- names yr reprieve provided 8: prison terms including life in prison ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Total 76 people/ 26 Where reported: 26: death 63 Uyghur cases Intentional 9: death + 2- 4 Han, of homicide; yr reprieve names arson; 15: life in provided robbery; prison intentional 18: 5-20 yrs injury; 8: prison intentional terms, destruction of including property; life in carrying out prison explosions ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The number of trials for crimes of endangering state security (ESS)--a category of criminal offenses that authorities in China have used to punish citizen activism and dissent--surged in the XUAR in 2009. Courts in the XUAR completed trials in 437 ESS cases in 2009, an increase of 169 cases over the previous year.\35\ The 2008 figure from the XUAR, 268 cases, appeared in turn to represent a sharp increase over previous years.\36\ As of December 2009, no trials directly related to events in July 2009 were reported to involve ESS crimes,\37\ suggesting the increase in 2009 may have come partly or fully from other sources, though detailed information on the ESS crimes committed in 2009 is not available.\38\ XUAR authorities had previously heightened politicized security campaigns in the region in advance of the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympic Games and into 2009.\39\ Controls Over Free Expression The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) government and Communist Party imposed widespread controls over the free flow of information in 2009 and 2010. Following demonstrations and riots in Urumqi starting July 5, 2009, the Urumqi Party Secretary announced on July 7 that authorities had cut Internet access in the city to ``quench the riot quickly and prevent violence from spreading to other places.'' \40\ Authorities also instituted Internet restrictions across the XUAR and imposed curbs on text messaging and international phone calls.\41\ The actual role the communication devices played in the violence (as opposed to demonstrations), however, was unclear,\42\ and the wide-reaching restrictions--affecting all Internet, SMS, and international phone content and lasting for months after the July 2009 events--exceeded permissible boundaries for limiting the right to free expression as defined in international human rights standards.\43\ [See Section II-- Freedom of Expression for details.] Authorities allowed XUAR residents more access to the technologies starting in late December and January \44\ but did not restore more complete Internet access until May 14.\45\ At the same time, after that date, a number of popular Uyghur-language Web sites remained shut down, with some of their staff held in detention [see box titled Free Expression Punished in Xinjiang below], and longstanding curbs throughout China over some human rights Web sites remained in place.\46\ Throughout the past year, and especially in advance of the one-year anniversary of events in July 2009, authorities also maintained restrictions on Internet discussions and reporting about the events and reportedly ordered people not to speak to foreign journalists without authorization.\47\ Authorities in the XUAR bolstered legal measures to repress free speech following events in July 2009. The XUAR People's Congress Standing Committee passed a new regulation on information promotion in September 25, 2009, effective December 1, 2009, that bans use of the Internet to ``endanger state security,'' ``incite ethnic separatism,'' ``destroy ethnic unity,'' or publish ``harmful'' information, among other acts.\48\ Though similar in certain respects to some Internet regulations elsewhere in China,\49\ one official described the new prohibitions as addressing the role the Internet played in allowing the ``three forces'' (terrorism, separatism, and religious extremism) to ``spread rumors, incite ethnic separatism, and provoke disturbances'' before events in Urumqi on July 5.\50\ The regulation stipulates the possibility of criminal penalties for acts such as ``destroying ethnic unity'' and ``inciting ethnic separatism'' (splittism).\51\ An announcement issued by three Kashgar district government offices in March 2010 reiterated the possibility of criminal punishment and other penalties for using the Internet and other communications technology to commit the crime of ``inciting separatism.'' The announcement defined the crime to include using technology to carry out, with the aim of splitting the country, acts including: spreading materials on separatism, ``inciting'' people to participate in demonstrations, distributing literary works ``with separatist content,'' and ``slandering and assaulting the Party and government.'' \52\ Additional regulations implemented or revised in the past year in the XUAR further expanded curbs over free expression. In addition to the new regulation on ethnic unity, discussed above,\53\ which curbs speech deemed ``not beneficial'' to ethnic unity, a regulation on social order, revised on December 29, 2009, and effective February 1, 2010, calls for government offices to punish those who create, publish, sell, or distribute materials perceived to touch on issues including threats to state security, ``illegal religion,'' and superstition.\54\ The XUAR government and Party also continued to enforce wide-scale censorship campaigns. A XUAR media report said the XUAR government and Party have made ``striking hard'' against ``reactionary'' materials and other ``illegal'' political and religious publications distributed by the ``three forces'' as the focus of the region's censorship campaign since 2009.\55\ The article also described strengthening controls over ``illegal'' materials especially after events in July 2009.\56\ Authorities initiated a special multi-province operation in 2009, headed by a XUAR government and Party group, aimed at stopping ``three forces'' materials.\57\ Zhou Huilin, Deputy Director of the National ``Sweep Away Pornography and Strike Down Illegal Publications'' Office, said that the operation held significance in staving off the threats of ``Westernization'' and ``division'' from ``Western countries led by the United States.'' \58\ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Free Expression Punished in Xinjiang ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Information emerged throughout this reporting year on people in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) detained for exercising their right to freedom of expression. Limited information from XUAR government and media sources indicates authorities have detained people of various ethnic groups for speech deemed to ``threaten stability,'' while several indepth reports detail detentions targeting Uyghurs in particular for speaking out about the demonstrations and riots in July 2009 or otherwise deemed to have a connection to the events. Haji Memet and Abdusalam Nasir, two Uyghur men from Huocheng (Qorghas) county, Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture, were detained on September 23, 2009, for their role in sharing information with U.S.- based Radio Free Asia on the death in custody of Shohret Tursun, a man from Huocheng who reportedly had been detained in Urumqi on July 6 and died in police custody under suspicious circumstances.\59\ Authorities reportedly suspected Haji Memet and Abdusalam Nasir of leaking state secrets.\60\ Authorities also reportedly detained several other people in connection to Shohret Tursun's case, and as of June 2010, reportedly continued to hold at least one of them in detention, along with Abdusalam Nasir.\61\ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Free Expression Punished in Xinjiang--Continued ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gheyret Niyaz, a Uyghur journalist and Web editor in Urumqi, was sentenced by the the Urumqi Intermediate People's Court on July 23, 2010, to 15 years' imprisonment for ``leaking state secrets.'' Prosecutors in court cited essays by Gheyret Niyaz addressing economic and social problems affecting Uyghurs; sources also connected the prison sentence to interviews Gheyret Niyaz gave to foreign media after the July 2009 demonstrations and riots that were critical of aspects of government policy in the XUAR.\62\ Nijat Azat, Dilshat Perhat, and Nureli, Web site administrators, received prison sentences of 10, 5, and 3 years, respectively, in July 2010 for ``endangering state security.'' \63\ Sources connected the cases to their Web sites not deleting postings about hardships in the XUAR and, in one instance, permitting the posting of announcements for the July 2009 demonstration.\64\ All three are believed to have been taken into detention in the aftermath of the July 2009 events,\65\ and other people involved with Uyghur Web sites also were detained during the same period.\66\ In July 2009, XUAR government chairperson Nur Bekri accused some Uyghur Web sites of contributing to incitement of the events on July 5.\67\ Gulmira (Gulmire) Imin, a Uyghur Web site administrator and government employee, was sentenced by the Urumqi Intermediate People's Court on April 1, 2010, to life in prison for ``splittism, leaking state secrets, and organizing an illegal demonstration.'' Authorities alleged she was involved in organizing the July 5, 2009, demonstration.\68\ Following the partial restoration of text messaging in the XUAR in January 2010, the XUAR Public Security Department penalized over 100 people in January and February for using text messages and telephone calls to ``spread harmful information,'' including information deemed to ``harm ethnic unity'' or pertain to ``splitting the country.'' While authorities levied administrative penalties on most people, they took at least five people into criminal detention.\69\ Authorities reported in May on penalizing others for similar acts.\70\ The penalties and detentions--about which authorities provided limited details--come amid a track record of authorities in China using overbroad and vague legal provisions to punish peaceful expression. [See Section II--Freedom of Expression for more information.] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Xinjiang Work Forum Central government and Communist Party authorities inaugurated a ``central work forum'' on the topic of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) in May 2010 that set central government and Party objectives for the region's economic and political development, intensifying a trend of top-down initiatives that prioritize state economic and political goals over the promotion of regional autonomy and broader protections of XUAR residents' rights.\71\ Speaking at the forum, President and Party General Secretary Hu Jintao described upholding long-term stability and promoting ``fast-track development'' as the dual priorities for the region.\72\ The forum did not address citizen grievances over longstanding political and religious controls in the XUAR and affirmed existing government policy toward ethnic and religious issues.\73\ Initiatives and goals addressed at the forum--some of which represent a continuation or intensification of older policies--included increased infrastructure construction; greater market access in some sectors; wider job creation and pension coverage; tax reforms aimed at keeping resource revenue in the region (a reform scheduled to be implemented throughout China \74\); and renewed programs to promote ``ethnic unity,'' ``social stability,'' and security of border areas.\75\ Authorities said development efforts will focus on the southern XUAR, an area with a predominantly Uyghur population that has lagged economically behind areas of the XUAR with larger Han populations.\76\ Authorities also will channel development assistance to the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, areas within the XUAR with a separate administrative structure and with predominantly Han residents that have adopted agricultural, manufacturing, and security functions.\77\ Taken as a whole, while some initiatives from the forum may bring some economic benefits to the region, the program appears to poise the XUAR to undergo greater demographic and cultural shifts in coming decades that further undercut the ability of Uyghurs and other non-Han groups to protect their culture, language, and livelihoods. Following the forum, XUAR Party Secretary Zhang Chunxian detailed development initiatives including plans to resettle 100,000 herders, resettle 700,000 urban residents, and intensify Mandarin-focused ``bilingual'' education, a program that has marginalized the use of Uyghur and other non-Han languages in XUAR schools.\78\ He also said that work would focus on strengthening the promotion of state ideologies, ``ethnic unity'' campaigns, and ``Party construction,'' a program to strengthen Party discipline, governance, and legitimacy.\79\ Language Policy and Bilingual Education The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) government intensified steps to promote Mandarin Chinese in XUAR schools and to largely phase out instruction in other languages, a development that in the future could permanently marginalize the role of the Uyghur language within broad segments of society in the XUAR. Authorities announced in May 2010 that by 2015, they would aim to universalize ``bilingual education''--a policy that, within the XUAR, has come to promote class instruction almost exclusively in Mandarin \80\--with the goal of making all ethnic minority children proficient in Mandarin by 2020.\81\ The efforts to make Mandarin the dominant language of instruction in XUAR schools contravene protections for ethnic minority languages in Chinese law \82\ and underscore state failures to safeguard and promote local languages as one component of regional ethnic autonomy. Prior to the May announcement, XUAR authorities had already increased promotion of ``bilingual education.'' In 2009, 31.79 percent of the total ethnic minority student population in the XUAR--753,300 ethnic minority preschool, primary, and secondary school students-- received ``bilingual education,'' an increase of over 25 percent from 2008, according to official statistics.\83\ Another 240,900 ethnic minority students (minkaohan students) received education solely in Mandarin through longstanding programs that track ethnic minority students directly into Mandarin Chinese schooling.\84\ The central and XUAR governments also continued to promote ``bilingual education'' at the preschool level. XUAR authorities reported in 2010 that the central and XUAR governments would build over 2,200 new ``bilingual'' kindergartens by 2012 and universalize two years of ``bilingual'' preschool education by that time.\85\ Authorities also continued to bolster plans to train more teachers for bilingual programs,\86\ a policy which has had a detrimental effect on older teachers who do not know Mandarin or teachers who do not meet certain political requirements, such as holding appropriate viewpoints toward religion, ethnicity, and the Marxist state.\87\ New developments in the past year also affected the career prospects of current students. In the past year, authorities announced plans to recruit 6,000 students each year from 2010 to 2013 for free teacher training, with a focus on students who have received ``bilingual education'' or education in Mandarin. The program will include students training to teach in bilingual programs.\88\ In addition, in announcing college recruitment priorities for the coming year, XUAR authorities said they would ``readjust'' preferential recruitment policies for ethnic minority students educated in ethnic minority languages and increase the number of students educated in Mandarin, in order to ``adapt to the needs of speeding up the promotion of `bilingual' education.'' \89\ In a measure that, depending on effectiveness of implementation, could promote the use of Uyghur in some capacity among government officials, a XUAR Communist Party office and a government department issued a circular in April to require all candidates for state jobs and some current state employees to pass a language proficiency test in a second language spoken in the XUAR.\90\ The degree of proficiency required and overall scope of implementation remains unclear, although authorities reported in 2010 on carrying out a separate language-training program to promote second-language skills for grassroots cadres.\91\ Population Planning Policies In the past reporting year, government authorities continued to enforce some population planning measures that target non-Han ethnic groups in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), at the same time it enforced broader population planning measures across the region. In October 2009, the National Population and Family Planning Commission signed an agreement with the XUAR government to launch a series of initiatives in the region to strengthen the region's population control work, including through ``special rewards'' (teshu jiangli) for families in 26 poor and border counties who have fewer children than permitted.\92\ Official media reported that the new reward policy mainly targets rural ethnic minority households that already have two children and have ``been certified'' as voluntarily forgoing a third birth.\93\ Under Article 15 of the XUAR's Regulation on Population and Family Planning, rural ethnic minority families are permitted to have a maximum of three children.\94\ In March 2009, a XUAR Party official called on ethnic and religious affairs departments to train religious leaders to ``bring their relatively greater prestige and influence among the religious masses into play [and] actively propagandize the importance of family planning[.]'' \95\ The steps build on earlier measures to target population planning in predominantly non-Han areas within the XUAR.\96\ Citizens who expose abuses in official implementation of population planning policies have faced repercussions,\97\ and information became available in the past reporting year on a Uyghur man from the XUAR detained for speaking to media about a case involving official abuses against his daughter. According to October 2009 reports from Radio Free Asia, authorities in Yining (Ghulja) county, Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture, detained 67-year-old Tursunjan Hesen on July 2, 2009, and reportedly accused him of revealing state secrets and endangering state security. Tursunjan Hesen earlier had given interviews to overseas media about a case involving his daughter, Arzigul Tursun, whom authorities had planned to subject to a forced abortion.\98\ Prior to his detention, Tursunjan Hesen reported that police had interrogated him repeatedly about Arzigul's case, asking him who had alerted international media about the situation.\99\ Freedom of Residence In the aftermath of demonstrations and riots in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) in July 2009, authorities increased oversight of migrants. Some of the steps appeared to target Uyghur migrants to Urumqi from other parts of the XUAR. Authorities alleged that Uyghur migrants who were involved in events in July had stayed in unregulated rental housing.\100\ According to official media, in August, Urumqi authorities launched a ``clean-up and reorganize'' campaign targeting ``disorderly'' migration and ``chaotic'' rental managements, after events in July ``exposed bottlenecks'' in the management of rentals and migrant populations.\101\ As areas of Urumqi implemented directives to regulate rentals, one district in Urumqi reported ``screening out and striking hard'' against ``itinerant society'' and ``illegal activities such as concealing the `three forces' [terrorism, separatism, and religious extremism] in rental housing.'' \102\ In April 2010, Urumqi authorities adopted a formal regulation, effective July, that institutes registration and other requirements on rentals,\103\ a step one official connected to the presence of migrants in the city and the use of rental housing by the ``three forces.'' \104\ The region's Regulation for the Comprehensive Management of Social Order, revised in December 2009, added new provisions to strengthen controls over migrants and over rental housing.\105\ In July, authorities demolished what they described as a shantytown in the Heijiashan area of Urumqi,\106\ where authorities had already increased oversight of migrants earlier in the year.\107\ An official in charge of the demolition--part of broader stated efforts to eliminate ``shantytowns''--said that migrants in the area ``often disrupted social order'' and because of ``poor management'' were ``easily incited by rioters'' during events in July 2009.\108\ Labor DISCRIMINATION Authorities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) reported taking some steps in the past year to promote employment among non-Han ethnic groups, but did not indicate that the government had taken broader measures to eliminate longstanding systemic discrimination in job hiring. The XUAR government and Party Committee implemented an opinion on employment promotion in October 2009 that calls for enterprises registered in the XUAR and enterprises working there to recruit no fewer than 50 percent of workers from among local XUAR residents.\109\ The opinion also calls for ``recruiting more ethnic minorities to the extent possible.'' \110\ In addition, employers are to pledge a fixed proportion of positions for ethnic minorities as part of work to increase recruitment of college graduates and prioritize graduates from the XUAR.\111\ (Within the XUAR, groups designated as ethnic minorities comprise about 60 percent of the population and Han Chinese 40 percent, according to official Chinese statistics.\112\) The opinion does not appear to clarify if the stipulations apply to government agencies.\113\ Information on adherence to the opinion and steps to promote the hiring of non-Han groups remains limited.\114\ Job hiring practices that discriminated against ethnic minorities continued. The Commission has tracked government and other employment announcements in recent years, including in the past reporting year, that reserved positions for Han, in violation of Chinese law.\115\ The Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps reserved 78 percent of 1,131 open positions for Han during job recruitment in the past year.\116\ LABOR TRANSFERS Authorities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) continued to send young non-Han men and women to work in factory jobs in the interior of China through programs that, in some cases, reportedly have involved coercion and have placed participants in exploitative working conditions.\117\ XUAR government chairperson Nur Bekri has denied that workers are coerced into participating in the government-led labor transfer programs--versions of which exist elsewhere in China \118\--and has described the programs as a means for XUAR residents to earn income and gain job training.\119\ Uyghurs demonstrating in Urumqi on July 5, 2009, were protesting government handling of a reported assault on Uyghur laborers sent to a Guangdong factory through the government-sponsored program.\120\ In the aftermath of the events, authorities affirmed that the labor transfer programs would continue.\121\ The XUAR Labor and Social Security Department reportedly planned to transfer 300,000 rural workers in 2010,\122\ an increase of approximately 60,000 people over the number of workers who went to jobs in the interior of China in 2008.\123\ Authorities continued to tie the labor transfers to broader efforts to promote state political ideology. According to a XUAR Human Resources and Social Security Department official,\124\ labor transfers not only have allowed participants to earn money but, ``more significantly,'' have enabled ethnic minorities in border areas to ``transform their ideas, liberate themselves from old thinking, and experience the huge achievements gained from the state's reform and opening.'' \125\ An article on labor transfers in Qaba (Habahe) county in Altay, Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture, reported that under county government leadership, numerous rural women changed ``traditional concepts'' and ``vigorously threw themselves into various kinds of economic construction.'' \126\ Another article reported that authorities in Jiashi (Peyziwat) county, Kashgar district, strengthened services to protect the rights of transferred workers, but also carried out work in ``ideology education'' and ``persuasion for morale.'' \127\ Protection of Cultural Heritage Authorities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) reported on continued steps to demolish and ``reconstruct'' the Old City section of Kashgar and relocate residents, a project which has drawn opposition from Uyghur residents and other observers for requiring the resettlement of residents and for undermining cultural heritage protection.\128\ Authorities in Kashgar implemented a ``zero-tolerance system'' (lingkongzhi) in the past year to curb citizen petitioning to higher authorities over grievances connected to the demolition and resettlement project.\129\ They incorporated incentives for officials to curb petitioning to higher level authorities in official performance evaluations.\130\ Authorities reported spreading information on the ``necessity, urgency, and significance'' of the demolition project and visiting local households to ``coordinate and solve'' existing problems.\131\ A Xinhua article reported that a three-month project was launched in October to survey cultural heritage in the Old City, but the article did not explain why the preservation effort began almost a year after beginning demolition work in the Old City.\132\ In the runup to the launch of the demolition project in 2009, authorities said that ``few'' buildings in the Old City had real preservation value and that most structures would be demolished.\133\ The statements on the number of buildings with preservation value were at odds, however, with outside assessments and earlier official evaluations of the area's cultural heritage, while subsequent reports indicated that historic buildings had been razed.\134\ Although Chinese authorities stated in the past year that an official from the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) supported the project,\135\ the UNESCO official said the organization's statements were taken out of context and described the Kashgar project as ``a whole cultural heritage that's being destroyed.'' \136\ Uyghur Refugees and Migrants Uyghurs seeking asylum outside of China continued to face barriers to accessing asylum proceedings and risk of refoulement under the sway of China's influence in neighboring countries and its disregard for international protections for asylum seekers. While a number of previously reported cases of refoulement and extradition involved refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants in central and south Asian countries near the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR),\137\ a case from the past year illustrated the barriers to asylum procedures that a group of Uyghurs faced in a southeast Asian country. On December 19, 2009, Cambodian authorities deported a group of 20 Uyghur asylum seekers to China, including 2 infants,\138\ in violation of international law.\139\ Most of the group, along with two others, had arrived in the country in November, and sought asylum from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) office in Phnom Penh.\140\ A Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) spokesperson alleged the asylum seekers were ``involved in crimes,'' and the Chinese government sent the Cambodian government a diplomatic note on the case.\141\ Cambodian authorities then deported the 20 people before the UNHCR made a determination of their refugee status.\142\ Two days after the deportation, China's Vice President Xi Jinping signed an agreement to provide a reported US$1.2 billion in aid to Cambodia.\143\ The Chinese MFA spokesperson denied a connection between the two events and said that authorities would deal with the Uyghur group's ``illegal criminal activities in accordance with the law.'' \144\ Chinese authorities reported in June that 3 of the 20 people returned to China were terrorist suspects,\145\ a charge that, even if made at the time of extradition, would not have precluded an assessment of the asylum cases by UN officers.\146\ Earlier in the reporting year, authorities in China also reportedly detained Uyghurs in Chinese cities outside the XUAR who had tried to leave China or who had helped others attempting to leave.\147\ V. Tibet Introduction During the Commission's 2010 reporting year, the Chinese government and Communist Party continued to press the ``core interest'' policy that seeks to isolate the Dalai Lama internationally and diminish or end his international influence. The Fifth Tibet Work Forum (Fifth Forum) applied the highest imprimatur of political power to achieving sweeping economic, social, and cultural policy objectives throughout the Tibetan autonomous areas of China by 2020--the same year that the government intends to have completed the ``redesign'' of Lhasa city and the construction of a network of railways crisscrossing the Tibetan plateau.\1\ The forum expanded the Party's Tibet policy purview beyond the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) to include the Tibetan autonomous prefectures and counties located in Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan, and Yunnan provinces. The forum set out economic development objectives that principally focus on accelerating and strengthening a development model that subordinates respecting and protecting Tibetan culture to Party and government priorities. During this reporting year, the dialogue between the Dalai Lama's representatives and Chinese government and Party officials resumed as the government increased pressure on Tibetan Buddhism, a principal element of Tibetan culture. The China-Dalai Lama dialogue resumed days after the Fifth Forum when the Dalai Lama's envoys arrived in China for the ninth round of formal dialogue since 2002 with Party officials. Neither side reported substantive progress and both sides reiterated key positions, but senior figures on both sides referred to certain developments in a positive manner. The Chinese government and Party strengthened the push to use policy and legal measures to shape and control what Chinese officials refer to as the ``normal order'' for Tibetan Buddhism. Legal measures requiring a nationwide re-registration of ``professional religious personnel,'' underway in the TAR during 2010, could result in substantial losses to the Tibetan monastic community if authorities apply re-registration in a manner intended to weed out monks and nuns whom authorities suspect of holding religious views that the government does not deem to be ``legal.'' Such views include religious devotion toward the Dalai Lama and support of the Dalai Lama's recognition in 1995 of Gedun Choekyi Nyima as the Panchen Lama. Reports of Tibetan political protest and detention declined during the Commission's 2010 reporting year based on Commission monitoring as of early September. The apparent decline may suggest that Tibetans generally are less willing to risk the consequences of political protest in the presence of the ongoing security crackdown on Tibetan communities, monasteries, nunneries, schools, and workplaces. Courts sentenced Tibetans to imprisonment for seeking to make information and views about the Tibetan protests available to other Tibetans (inside and outside of China) and for using cultural or entertainment media to articulate their views. Internationally, Government Presses ``Core Interest'' Policy To Isolate Dalai Lama The Chinese government and Communist Party during the Commission's 2010 reporting year pressed the ``core interest'' policy that seeks to isolate the Dalai Lama internationally and diminish or end his international influence.\2\ The policy is based on Chinese officials' assertions that ``Tibet'' is one of China's two ``core interests'' (``Taiwan'' is the other); \3\ the Dalai Lama is a ``splittist''; \4\ and that other governments, therefore, should not permit the Dalai Lama to enter their countries and thereby threaten China's ``territorial integrity.'' \5\ During the period preceding U.S. President Barack Obama's February 18, 2010, meeting with the Dalai Lama,\6\ China's state-run media published demands that the United States ``respect China's core interests'' by not allowing the meeting to occur.\7\ During the period between the October 6, 2009, White House statement \8\ confirming that the meeting would take place at a time following the President's November 15 to 18 China visit,\9\ and the February 11, 2010, White House announcement that the meeting would take place on February 18,\10\ some Chinese media reports expressed exuberance based on the incorrect conclusion that President Obama's decision to travel to China before meeting with the Dalai Lama signaled that Chinese government pressure had caused him to decide to forego meeting the Dalai Lama.\11\ The ``core interest'' policy that aims to isolate the Dalai Lama internationally operates in tandem with the Party's domestic campaign to isolate Tibetans in China from the Dalai Lama. [See, e.g., Hu Jintao Invokes Marxist Theory To Reinforce Struggle Against the Dalai Lama's Influence in this section.] At the same time, the Chinese government seeks to isolate Tibetans in China from the international community with respect to issues such as human rights by asserting that Tibetan affairs are China's ``internal affairs'' and ``brook no interference'' from other countries.\12\ The results of such Chinese government policies could include further increases of human rights abuses of Tibetans concurrent with a decrease in the ability of the international community to detect, document, and respond to such abuses. Domestically, Fifth Forum Sets Far-Reaching Objectives for 2010-2020 PRIOR TO FORUM, POLITBURO SETS ``NEW'' STRATEGY FOR GOVERNING TIBET On January 8, 2010, 10 days prior to the Fifth Tibet Work Forum (Fifth Forum),\13\ the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau (Politburo) of the Communist Party met to formulate a ``new general strategy for governing Tibet.'' \14\ At the meeting, Politburo members planned the Party's ``work on Tibet'' for the period ahead, namely ``the advancement of work on Tibet's development by leaps and bounds and long-term order and stability in the new situation.'' \15\ China's state-run media reported that the Politburo's ``new general strategy'' for Tibetan governance would be based on the notion of ``four adherences'': \16\ ``Insist on adherence to the [Party's] leadership''; ``Insist on adherence to the socialist system''; ``Insist on adherence to the system of regional autonomy for minority nationalities''; and ``Insist on adherence to a development path with Chinese characteristics and Tibetan traits.'' The fourth ``adherence'' reaffirms the Party's intention to continue the policy of creating a Tibet where the fundamental objectives (the ``development path'') are Chinese, but where some ``Tibetan traits'' will remain.\17\ As a governing ``strategy,'' the ``adherences'' emphasize the high degree of subordination imposed on local ethnic autonomous governments established under China's Constitution and Regional Ethnic Autonomy Law.\18\ None of the 25 members of the Politburo--the highest ranking bureau within the Party's Central Committee-- are Tibetans.\19\ Formulation of a ``new'' Tibetan governance strategy by a body made up of the highest ranking representatives of central Party and government power, and lacking Tibetan representation, demonstrates the poor implementation of ``ethnic autonomy'' in the Tibetan autonomous areas of China. THE FORUM: HIGHEST LEVEL OF PARTY AND STATE SUPPORT The nine-member Politburo Standing Committee presided at the January 18-20 Fifth Forum, signifying the highest level of Party and state support for policy objectives across the Tibetan autonomous areas of China.\20\ Party General Secretary and President of China Hu Jintao and Premier of the State Council Wen Jiabao delivered key addresses.\21\ The Fourth Tibet Work Forum took place in June 2001.\22\ Maintaining the Rural Priority: Boost Income, Provide Services, Build Infrastructure Hu Jintao outlined at the Fifth Forum a series of development goals for 2015 and 2020 that prioritize changes to rural Tibetan areas--where 87 percent of Tibetans lived in 2000, according to official Chinese census data \23\--and that will have the capacity to increase pressure on Tibetan culture in rural areas. The Party and government's heightened emphasis on the link between rural development and regional stability follows Tibetan farmers' and herders' participation in the wave of protests (and some rioting) that began in Lhasa in March 2008 and spread to locations across the Tibetan plateau.\24\ By 2015, the gap between the income level of farmers and herders in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) and the national average \25\ must be ``markedly narrowed'' and by 2020, the gap must be nearly closed, Hu told forum attendees.\26\ The government's ability to provide basic public services in rural areas must be ``markedly increased'' by 2015 and must be near the national level by 2020.\27\ Hu said that infrastructure construction must make ``great progress'' by 2015, and by 2020 infrastructure must be ``comprehensively improved.'' \28\ As of September 2010, the Commission had observed few published reports containing details about specific projects that the Fifth Forum would promote in the Tibetan autonomous areas of China. Pema Choling (Baima Chilin), Chairman of the TAR government as of January 15, 2010,\29\ said in March that the Fifth Forum adopted ``unprecedented new measures'' and the TAR government would ``initiate some major projects,'' but he named only one: the ``Qinghai-Tibet direct current transmission line.'' \30\ In terms of potential economic, demographic, environmental, and cultural impact, however, the most important infrastructure projects that the central government has announced for completion by 2020 are several new railways that will crisscross the Tibetan plateau.\31\ New Development: Policy Coordination Across an Expanded Tibetan Area The Fifth Forum for the first time expanded and coordinated the Party's Tibetan policy purview beyond the administrative boundaries of the TAR to include the Tibetan autonomous prefectures and counties located in Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan, and Yunnan provinces.\32\ China's state-run media reported that the Fifth Forum ``made comprehensive arrangements for speeding up the economic and social development'' of the Tibetan areas of those four provinces at both central and provincial government levels.\33\ Echoing the principal policy declarations of the January Politburo meeting [see Prior to Forum, Politburo Sets ``New'' Strategy for Governing Tibet in this section], the Fifth Forum identified four priorities as ``the main direction of attack'' for resolving ``the most conspicuous and most urgent issues restraining economic and social development'' (listed in the order reported): \34\ ``Improvement in the people's livelihood''; ``Development of social undertakings''; ``Protection for the ecological environment''; and ``Construction of the infrastructure.'' The policy change more than doubles the number of Tibetans who live within the Fifth Forum's contiguous target area and nearly doubles the area subject to central-level policy coordination. According to official Chinese 2000 census data, of approximately 5.42 million Tibetans in China, approximately 2.43 million lived in the TAR and approximately 2.57 million lived in the Tibetan autonomous areas of Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan, and Yunnan.\35\ The expanded Tibetan policy area, with an area of approximately 2.24 million square kilometers, is nearly double the size of the 1.2-million-square-kilometer TAR.\36\ The Party's decision to expand the Tibetan policy area and coordinate policy implementation has resulted in an unprecedented political consequence: Chinese government and Party officials, as well as the Dalai Lama and his representatives, have focused their respective recent policy statements on the same area of administrative geography--all of the Tibetan autonomous areas of China. The Dalai Lama's envoys' November 2008 ``Memorandum on Genuine Autonomy for the Tibetan People'' \37\ identifies the Tibetan area that the Memorandum seeks to address as ``comprising all the areas currently designated by the PRC as Tibetan autonomous areas.'' \38\ The Chinese and Tibetan parties engaged in the China-Dalai Lama dialogue continue, however, to maintain different policy approaches toward the Tibetan autonomous areas.\39\ Hu Jintao Invokes Marxist Theory To Reinforce Struggle Against the Dalai Lama's Influence Party General Secretary and President of China Hu Jintao may have used the Fifth Forum to seek to improve the Party's reputation as ``Communist'' by using an esoteric Marxist premise to reinforce the Party campaign against the Dalai Lama and end the Dalai Lama's influence among Tibetans in China.\40\ Hu applied the Marxist theoretical concept of ``special contradiction'' to what the Party claims is a threat to China's ethnic unity and stability that the Dalai Lama and organizations and individuals that the Party associates with him (``the Dalai Clique'') create.\41\ Marxism posits that a ``special contradiction'' may exist when an entity such as an ethnic minority group considers itself to be ``alienated'' from other ethnic groups, then makes the ``mistake'' of equating ``alienation'' with ``differentiation'' and attributing alienation to ``historical categories.'' \42\ (That is, if ethnic Tibetans believe they are ``differentiated'' from ethnic Chinese, and that such a belief has a historical basis, then the Party blames ``the Dalai Clique'' for creating a ``special contradiction'' to Marxism.) Hu's prominent mention at the Fifth Forum of the Marxist notion of ``special contradiction'' may seek to serve Party interests by creating the semblance of a Communist ideological basis for the Party insistence that the Dalai Lama aims to ``separate the motherland'' (seek independence).\43\ The Dalai Lama's recurrent assertions that he seeks ``genuine'' (or ``meaningful'') autonomy for Tibetans, not independence, hinder the Party's campaign. Increasing Pressure on Religion: The ``Normal Order'' for Tibetan Buddhism Hu Jintao used the powerful Fifth Forum platform to emphasize the Communist Party's role in controlling Tibetan Buddhism and the important role of law as a tool to enforce what the Party deems to be the ``normal order'' for the religion. Hu instructed the forum: ``Comprehensively implement the Party's basic principles for religious work and laws and regulations on the government's administration of religious affairs, earnestly maintain the normal order of Tibetan Buddhism, and guide Tibetan Buddhism to keep in line with the socialist society.'' \44\ The legal measures to which Hu Jintao referred at the Fifth Forum empower the Chinese government to reshape and control Tibetan Buddhism (and other religions) and had not yet been created when the Fourth Tibet Work Forum took place in 2001.\45\ [See Religious Freedom: Tibetan Buddhists ``Can Believe Whatever They Want as Long as It's Legal'' in this section.] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Initial Fifth Forum Reports Do Not Address Some Key Issues ------------------------------------------------------------------------- State-run media reports on the Fifth Forum seen by the Commission in the weeks following the forum are also noteworthy for what they do not include. None of the reports provided details about infrastructure and aid projects from 2010 to 2020 or estimates of their cost. The total cost of building additional railways linking Tibetan autonomous areas with principal cities in Gansu, Sichuan, and Yunnan provinces, and with the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, could be several times greater than the 33 billion yuan (US$4.7 billion) cost of constructing the Qinghai-Tibet railway.\46\ None of the Fifth Forum reports provided information about whether Party and government personnel canvassed Tibetans at the grassroots level on their preferences for economic and social development. None of the reports provided information on whether ``Tibet work'' over the coming decade aims to improve the human rights environment for Tibetans along with their standard of living, or whether officials intend to address in a reconciliatory manner any of the complaints that Tibetans have raised in the series of protests that began in March 2008.\47\ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Status of Negotiations Between the Chinese government and the Dalai Lama or His Representatives The China-Dalai Lama dialogue resumed less than one week after the Fifth Tibet Work Forum (Fifth Forum) concluded.\48\ The Dalai Lama's envoys arrived in China on