Human rights groups criticise China's Xinjiang trial
Updated
China has handed out death sentences to 12 people accused of taking part in the violent July protests in Urumqi, in China's western Xinjiang region.The July riot left almost 200 people dead and 1600 injured.
Chinese authorities had promised an open and fair legal proceedings against the suspects, but this has been disputed by human rights organisations.
Presenter: Sen Lam
Speaker: Phelim Kine, Human Rights Watch in Hong Kong.
- Listen:
- Windows Media
KINE: Unfortunately, contrary to the Chinese government's original promises that these trials would be open to the public and have free access, they were absolutely not. They were closed, foreign journalists were not invited or allowed to attend, nor were international observers.
LAM: Well, the Chinese authorities argued that the trials were fair, certainly the first two trials, because the defendants were given the option of appointing their own lawyers and indeed, four of them I understand did. Was that not at least a gesture of good faith by the Chinese authorities?
KINE: Well unfortunately, there is evidence that lawyers were warned off from taking on cases of Urumqi rioters. So there was definitely, even for those individuals who might have wanted to appoint their own lawyers, there was a very limited pool, because the Chinese Government had sent out the word that it was not in lawyers' best interest to take on such cases.
LAM: And what do you make of the fact that certainly, with the first two trials, that they took only one day each?
KINE: Well unfortunately, it looks like history is repeating itself in terms of the types of trials and the types of ... the approach to justice that the Chinese Government took to rioters and to those who were prosecuted in the aftermath of the Tibet violence in March 2008. And it raises serious doubts about how the Chinese Government is going to conduct the trials for literally, the hundreds of other suspects which is says it has arrested in connection to the Urumqi violence. So this is really the tip of the iceberg in terms of how the Chinese Government is going to be handling the trials of those who were arrested in relation to the Urumqi violence. And it is very disquieting, in terms of how they dealt with the first two trials.
LAM: And what information does Human Rights Watch have on the hundreds of people that you mentioned, those people who detained after the riots?
KINE: Well unfortunately, information on those individuals is extremely hard to find. These people have essentially fallen into a judicial black hole. And there is very little, if any judicial access - families of suspects are not granted access to them. And there are still large numbers of people who are simply have been 'disappeared' - who according to relatives, family members, in Xinjiang, the police say they simply have no record of these individuals. So it is a matter of extreme concern with regards to how the Chinese government is handling the aftermath of what was really some of the worst ethnic violence in China in decades. And it really does require serious and transparent handling, in order to address some of the resentments which appear to exist there.
LAM: And indeed, I imagine those resentments will only build, if the trials are not seen to be free and fair?
KINE: Exactly. The Chinese Government has a real opportunity here to show both to the Han Chinese and to the Uighurs in Xinjiang and to the wide international audience, which has had a lot of exposure to this problem in terms of the footage of the riots and what happened in the aftermath, it really needs to prove that it's serious about getting to the bottom of why this happened, so it does not happen again.
