Kyrgyzstan’s Worried Uighurs

[Aidoneus]

Kyrgyzstan’s Worried Uighurs
Local minority fears Kyrgyz government is targeting it as part of a bigger political game.
By Sultan Jumagulov in Bishkek (RCA No. 221, 04-Aug-03)

Ethnic Uighurs living in Kyrgyzstan say they are suffering because the government there unjustly labels their community as terrorists.

The Uighurs - originally from the neighbouring province of Xinjiang in China - fear they are being victimised because the Kyrgyz authorities want to curry favour with China, and are exploiting the international war on terrorism to do so.

“This concept of Uighur terrorism and extremism is constantly hammered into the Kyrgyz public consciousness,” IWPR was told by Rozimuhammed Abdulbakiev, head of the Uighur Unity Society, Ittipak.

Community leaders voiced their worries about the trend at a national congress of Uighurs held in Bishkek on July 28. Many feel that whenever a crime is committed in Kyrgyzstan and an Uighur is found to be involved, the government and the state- controlled media deliberately ascribe it to the Islamic militant and separatist movement operating across the border in China.

“Anti-Uighur propaganda has created a negative image of the whole community,” said Muzaffar Kurbanov, editor of Vizhdan Avazi (Voice of Conscience), an Uighur-language newspaper in Bishkek.

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http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?archive/rca/rca_200308_221_3_eng.txt