Raise your hand if you want your culture erased by China

Democratic Party lawmaker Ted Hui. Photo: inmediahk.net.

Pro-democracy lawmaker Ted Hui said that he will launch a private criminal prosecution against the officer who shot the protester, under the charges of “attempted murder” and “attempting to shoot with intent to do grievous bodily harm.”  The maximum penalty for the charges is life imprisonment.

Hui said that the move was to “counter the government” as there was no other feasible way for the protester to seek justice. The officer’s intent was to kill instead of self-defence, he added.  https://www.hongkongfp.com/2019/10/02/hong-kong-police-set-new-single-day-record-no-arrests-projectile-rounds-tear-gas-fired-tue/

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  Kerim’s eyes grew with excitement as she held her copy of the magazine. On its cover was a drawing of an angry plump man holding a bag of presents—the Uighur tradition’s answer to Santa Claus.  Copies of the magazine have made it into the hands of Uighur children living in a dozen countries but not to their homeland, the Chinese region of Xinjiang where the government has outlawed their language in schools and is on a mission to erase their culture....

  “We cried for more than two years, and we protested for more than two years, but nothing changed,” said Yusuf Sulaiman, a musician who at the end of last year formed an already popular Uighur band in Istanbul.  “So I thought, we must change our style, we must do something, find another way.”  For some, the pivot was prompted by the responsibility to create an emotionally healthier environment for Uighur children--and to prepare them for a longer campaign of cultural resistance.   https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/09/30/the-capital-of-xinjiang-is-now-in-turkey/

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-missing relatives

9-30-19  The approach of the authorities was initially to frustrate Ata-Jurt by means of bureaucracy – denying it permission to operate legally by refusing to register it as a legitimate nongovernmental group. In February, the China-born firebrand leader of the group, Serikzhan Bilash, was fined $670 for leading an unregistered organization. 

More robust measures were adopted in March, when security services arrested Bilash and charged him with inciting interethnic hatred. 

In mid-August, Bilash’s lawyer, Aiman Umarova, said her client was offered a deal: plead guilty, stop the activism and he would be allowed to go free.

“They have no evidence of his guilt.  I will not sign a procedural agreement, even if it requires me to give up my lawyer’s license,” Umarova said at the time.  But then, in a surprise turn of events, the normally combative Bilash ditched his lawyer and signed up to the agreement.

Bilash revealed the details of the agreement in an interview to RFE/RL's Kazakh service, Radio Azattyq.  He said that he was barred from dealing with matters to do with China-born Kazakhs for a period of seven years.  As his new lawyer told Radio Azattyq, Bilash would not be permitted to lead any public organization within that timeframe.     https://eurasianet.org/kazakhstan-xinjiang-rights-movement-registered-but-in-neutered-form/

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9-30-19  On six occasions

Peng showed up to collect packages left at hotels in California and Georgia, the criminal complaint says. In four of the cases, the parcels contained secure digital (SD) memory cards containing classified information, and Peng left behind a total of $70,000 for the source who dropped them off, the complaint says.

Peng, a naturalized U.S. citizen from China, is believed to have been "instructed in spycraft, practiced it, and knew that he was working for intelligence operatives of the People's Republic of China," the complaint says. He was arrested at his home in the city of Hayward last Friday.  https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/california-man-charged-elaborate-chinese-spy-operation-n1060446