A man has been detained in Urumqi for posting information online about protests in Xinjiang. From AFP:
The man, who was identified only by his surname, Ya, was accused of posting a report on the Internet in January about 500 Uighurs demonstrating against a supposed murder in Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, Xinhua news agency said.
Ya had also written that 16 ethnic Han Chinese had beaten and killed a Uighur, the report quoted a police spokesman for Aksu prefecture, in western Xinjiang, as saying.
The policeman said that the false account had been online for three hours before it was removed, Xinhua reported.
Official news reports say that Ya confessed to making up the reports. From China Daily:
The police said that Ya, in his confession, said he fabricated the story after seeing people fighting in a local entertainment center the previous day.
The fighting was led a quarrel, in which six Uygur customers spoke loudly while playing games at a recreation center, and then fought with the center’s staffs when the employees persuaded them to speak in an undertone.
Local police said people involved in that skirmish had been taken into custody.
Meanwhile, it has also been reported that two people have been sentenced in Xinjiang for staging protests – one for organizing a non-violent rally and another for raising a flag of an independent Uighur republic. AP reports:
On March 6, Mamatali Ahat was sentenced to eight years in prison after he raised a flag symbolizing an independent Uighur republic, the Washington-based Uyghur American Association said in a statement.
He raised the flag next to a statue in the city of Hotan depicting China’s communist founder Mao Zedong shaking hands with a Uighur farmer.
A man who answered the phone at the Hotan Municipal Court but did not want to give his name confirmed the sentence and said details of the case could be found in an official report posted March 9 to the Web site of the law and politics committee of the Xinjiang regional Communist Party.
[…] On Feb. 26 Abdukadir Mahsum was sentenced to 15 years in prison for organizing demonstrations against religious repression and the death of a well-known Uighur philanthropist while in police custody in the city of Hotan in March 2008, the group said.
