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Since 1988, the Chinese government has been carrying out the notorious "birth control" policy towards the Uighurs motivating this by the excessive population in China. Depriving the Uighurs the access to the wealth generated by exploiting natural resources of East Turkistan and opportunities for prosperity, the Chinese authorities “fight” the poverty among Uighurs by reducing the size of the Uighur people, which is officially regarded a minority nationality.

The policy is supposed to increase the per capita wealth in the region by reducing the size of the population. But, in fact, the strict inhuman “birth control” measures towards the Uighurs are combined with the massive population transfer into East Turkistan from China’s inner provinces. Taking into account that the population of China is 1.3 billion people and that the Uighurs account only for its 0.006 %, this means that East Turkistan will continue to have a low per capita wealth regardless the effects of birth control towards the Uighurs. Therefore, the Chinese authorities have different reasons for imposing the birth control onto Uighurs.

The "birth control" in East Turkistan does not aim at improving the living standards of the Uighurs. It is a Chinese form of ethnic cleansing of the territory of East Turkistan from the Uighurs to create the “living space” for Chinese migrants. The forced implementation of the "birth control" policy towards the Uighurs is a very serious crime against the Uighur people, Islamic religion, and human rights.

East Turkistan Information Center obtained the full text of the document issued by the Hotan Communist Party Committee “On further strengthening of the birth control policy”. The Hotan Prefecture is the poorest area in East Turkistan densely populated by Uighurs. Uighurs comprise 95% of its population 90% of which is peasantry. Therefore, the document can be viewed as the outline of the demographic policy of the Chinese communist party towards the Uighur population in general.

The first section of the document, under the title “Real strengthening of the leadership over the birth control”, explains the importance of the leadership’s role in improving the implementation of the birth control policy. According to the document, the top leadership must consider the birth control policy as one of their main tasks, the first and second rank leadership is responsible for the implementation, and cadres of the lower three levels, those of districts, towns and villages, must actively participate in birth control actions. Thus, although there are special offices and workers responsible for the implementation of the birth control policy, the communist party requires that “all cadres were involved in this campaign”.

Another paragraph of the document, called “A special double checking of all children born between the beginning of 1998 to April 2000”, warns the ranking officials of strict punishments for a failure in implementing the birth control policy. If a child born after 2000 and beyond the plan is revealed, the work of the first leaders will be inspected and the necessary punishment will be determined. If one “extra” child is revealed in a village, the head of the village will be deprived of his ten days salary. If several children are revealed, the officials will be dismissed from their positions for hiding the facts, and the police may investigate their cases. Thus, the Chinese Communist Party puts a strong pressure on local authorities in the implementation of the birth control policy.

Each administrative unit is given a births quota. Birth control workers forcibly take all women who became pregnant beyond the quota to a doctor to have an abortion. There were cases when babies were taken off their mothers’ wombs just a few days before their due dates. Forcible abortions of women very often cause permanent psychological and physical damages and make the women unable to bear children in the future.

The following incident of a brutal treatment of a pregnant woman took place in the city of Turfan. A Uighur woman Hayrinisahan aged 32 married Ahmetjan aged 36. For both of them, it was a second marriage and each of them had a child from the previous marriage who lived with the parents. Hayrinisahan and Ahmetjan decided to have a common child believing that they are allowed to have another child since this is their second marriage.

When Hayrinisahan was five months pregnant, the birth control workers found out about her pregnancy and demanded from Hayrinisahan to have an abortion since her pregnancy was beyond the plan. A birth control official began to visit their family every day with his demands. Ahmetjan received a warning from his employer that he will be expelled if they do not “get rid” of a child.

The poor family decided to have a fictitious divorce in order to keep both the child and the husband’s job. They divorced officially, and Hayrinisahan went secretly to Pichan district to have a delivery there. However, in a month, birth control workers detected her and forced to return to Turfan for the abortion.

Then, she went secretly to Tohsun district, but was found again after two and half month period. Hayrinisahan escaped to a remote mountainous part of Karashahar district located 300 kilometers from Turfan. When she was about to give a birth to a child, a birth control official arrived with two policemen, and they accompanied her to Turfan as if she were a criminal. She was taken to a hospital where she delivered a child. The baby ended up dead. The poor woman went mad after all, and she can be met as a madwoman in the streets of Turfan.

Section 6 of the document instructs that, in order to prevent unplanned pregnancies among Uighur women, officials of the birth control office must visit once a month all families in a village and keep a list of all pregnant women. They also have to watch women in case someone tries to get rid of a contraceptive spiral without the proper authorization. If a woman needs to have the spiral taken off, this must be done only in the district’s birth control office. Any doctor beyond the birth control office who assists a woman to remove the spiral must be fired and imposed the penalty of ten thousand yuans.

The document also requires that all women with three children must be sterilized. These regulations show that the Chinese authorities use inhuman immoral uncivilized measures to reduce the Uighur population. Nowadays, Uighur women in East Turkistan are treated as animals. Private lives of the women can be intervened every moment by birth control officers, and their bodies can be violated by forced abortions and sterilizations.

Moreover, the Chinese authorities do not deny that birth control offices lack modern medical equipment and that the birth control officers often do not have a proper training. The chances of being mistreated in the Chinese birth control offices are very high. Nevertheless, the women must either comply with the authorities or be considered as a violator of the state law.

According to official “Hotan geziti” (the Hotan newspaper) from September 1, long-term birth control measures had been taken towards 30,400 Uighur women in Hotan district only, where the total number of women in the district was about 45,000. One can see how aggressively and quickly the birth control instructions of the government are being implemented.

On June 20, 1999, 28 Uighur women from various places of Payzavat district, aged from 25 to 34, were forced to undergo abortions because their pregnancies were out of the birth control plan. During these mass operations, several Uighur women died including Qemberhan and Mukerremhan. According to the information provided by a doctor who is seeking a political asylum in Germany and wants to remain anonymous, the death rate during abortions among Uighur women is extremely high. Besides, because of the poverty of the Uighur people in countryside and the lack of proper health care system, even the women who had successful abortions have a great chance to have medical complications in the future.

Sources close to the Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) have reported that Alim Abdureyim, the youngest son of the human rights activist and former prisoner of conscience Rebiya Kadeer, ‘confessed’ on or around July 1 to criminal and political charges against him as a direct consequence of being tortured.

Alim, who was reported on June 25 to have been tortured, is understood to have signed confessions to the charges against him of tax evasion and “attempting to split the state”. UHRP is extremely concerned he has been tortured on at least two occasions, and that he may be in need of urgent medical attention.

“Our first concern is Alim Abdureyim’s health – is there any permanent damage, will they let a doctor in to see him?” said Alim Seytoff, Director of UHRP. “And now that they have what they want – his ‘confession’ – will they stop torturing him?”

The source added that since ‘confessing’, Alim Abdureyim has been moved to “better conditions” in the Tianshan District detention center in Urumchi, the regional capital of East Turkistan (Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region), where he and his two brothers are being held. However, the source was unable to give any details on the extent or nature of any injuries which may have been inflicted on Alim.

“It’s going to be extremely difficult for Alim to retract that confession now,” continued Mr Seytoff. “There are cases that have gone through the Chinese courts where even the judge has acknowledged the defendant’s confession was extorted through torture, but there’s still a conviction – this is one of the reasons why the conviction rate in Chinese courts is up over 99%.”

Torture in Chinese places of detention is “widespread”, according to a recent report by Dr Manfred Nowak, the UN Special Rapporteur on torture, which was issued after he completed a mission to the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The mission included a visit to Urumchi. Dr Nowak also added that there has been a “consistent and systematic pattern of torture related to ethnic minorities, particularly Tibetans and Uyghurs.”

No new information is available on the legal status nor the physical well-being of Rebiya Kadeer’s second son Ablikim Abdureyim, who was hospitalized in early June following a severe beating by police which was witnessed by his young children and his nieces and nephews. Ablikim was also charged with tax evasion, and with “attempting to subvert state power”.

UHRP understands that Kahar, Ms Kadeer’s eldest son, is still being interrogated by police in detention. Kahar is thought to be facing only one charge, that of tax evasion, seemingly escaping the potentially far more serious political charges leveled against his brothers. Meanwhile, Ms Kadeer’s daughter, Rushangul, and younger brother Mamat remain held under a form of house arrest.

The same source told UHRP that the Kadeer family businesses in Urumchi have all been closed or ordered to suspend business activities, except for one restaurant, which is intended by the regional authorities to provide enough income for the entire extended family.

China’s 1996 Criminal Procedure Law dictates that defendants should be brought to trial within two months of being formally charged. Seeing as the three sons were all formally charged on June 13, it could therefore be expected that they will be tried on or before August 12. However, there are numerous mechanisms in Chinese law which allow for that time period to be ‘legally’ extended.

Indeed, it remains to be seen whether the Chinese authorities will choose to abide by Chinese procedural law when prosecuting Ms Rebiya Kadeer’s three sons. Often, in cases with a politically sensitive bearing, such procedural regulations are ignored and suspects can spend extended periods denied the right to family visits and the right to meet with legal representation – sometimes only allowing limited contact post-sentencing.

Similarly, although torture is explicitly outlawed under Chinese law and China has ratified key international human rights conventions on the prevention of torture, yet it remains “widespread”. The government of the PRC is regularly pressed by sources ranging from the United Nations and Amnesty International to offices within the Chinese government itself to implement mechanisms whereby people who have suffered torture can report the fact and have the allegation independently investigated. To date, however, no measures to address or curb torture in China have been seen to be demonstrably effective.