China convicted more than 700 for terrorism, separatism in 2014

China convicted and sentenced 712 people for terrorism, separatism and related crimes last year, the country’s top court said on Thursday, saying such offences were its top priority for 2015. Violent attacks and unrest have been on the rise in recent years in China’s remote Xinjiang region, home to the mostly Muslim Uighur minority, and Tibetan areas, where reports of self-immolation in protest against Chinese rule often hit global headlines. China has vowed to step up punishment of what it calls “violent terrorists” and is drafting its first-ever anti-terrorism law.  Rights groups have warned it would grant the Communist Party even greater powers to “define terrorism and terrorist activities so broadly as to easily include peaceful dissent or criticism” of government policies.

[We will] actively participate in the fight against terrorism and separatism and firmly punish violent terrorist crimes according to the law. [We will] seriously punish the various crimes that gravely harm the people’s safety, resolutely maintain national security, ethnic unity and social stability.

Supreme People’s Court report

More than 450 people were killed in Xinjiang last year, a rights group said earlier this month - with three times as many deaths among Uighurs than Han Chinese, the country’s ethnic majority. Information in the area is tightly controlled and difficult to independently verify. Rights groups say that harsh police treatment of Uighurs and government campaigns against religious practices, such as the wearing of veils, has led to violence.

Asia-Pacific