Chinese paramilitary soldiers patrol in an open-cab jeep the streets of downtown Beijing on May 15, 2014. China's capital has significantly stepped up security measures in what the country's state media has described as "an escalation of anti-terror efforts" following a string of domestic attacks. UPI/Stephen Shaver |
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BEIJING , June 23 (UPI) -- Xinjiang, China, officials claimed Monday 32 terrorist groups have been dissolved and 315 people sentenced since a crackdown of terrorism began in western China in May.
A report published on the website of Legal Daily, the newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party's Central Commission for Political and Legal Affairs, said the 315 people received sentences -- including 13 death sentences, as well as unspecified other punishments -- in 120 separate legal cases. It added 264 explosive devices and over three tons of explosives were discovered.
The report was short on details of arrests and convictions, but noted in several instances, people were arrested for watching videos relevant to terrorism. Police confiscated hundreds of items of electronic media.
The enforcement of law comes in an area of China with a significant population of Muslim Uighurs, some of whom seek an independent homeland they call East Turkestan. The government anti-terrorism campaign began in May after 39 people were killed in a vehicle explosion in the city of Urumqi. The four alleged suspects who died at the scene, and a fifth later arrested, each had Uighur surnames, official reports said.
Other terrorist acts, connected to Uighur claims of discrimination and mistreatment, have occurred throughout the area, as well as in Beijing.
Uighur intellectuals had been arrested prior to the crackdown. The case of Ilham Tohti, an economics professor at Beijing's Minzu University, a school with a large student body of ethnic minorities, has drawn the condemnation of global human rights groups. Tohti has argued the government's policy of severe security measures and controls over ethnic culture in Western China is alienating the Uighur population.
Tohti was detained in January and arrested in February on charges of provoking separatism. His lawyer, Li Fangping, said Monday his client still awaits indictment and has not been tried.
