Beijing - A US-based Uighur rights group on Friday accused
China of "suffocating" free expression by the country's Uighur minority after reports that three Uighur webmasters were sentenced to long prison terms last week for "endangering state security."
News of the sentencing in China's ethnically divided far western region of Xinjiang follows the jailing of Uighur writer Gheyret Niyaz for 15 years on similar charges on July 23, the Uighur American Association said.
The three webmasters were sentenced around the same time as Niyaz, the group quoted the brother of Dilshat Perhat, one of the three, as saying.
Dilshat Perhat, 28, was sentenced to five years in prison after a closed trial in Urumqi, the regional capital, his Britain-based brother said.
The two others, identified as Salkin and Nijat Azat, were sentenced to three years and 10 years in prison respectively, Dishat Perhat's brother told the group, confirming a report by US-based Radio Free Asia.
The charges against the three were apparently linked to messages posted on their websites
advertising a protest planned in Urumqi on July 5 last year, although Dilshat Perhat had repeatedly deleted the postings and told police about them, his brother said.
"The Chinese government is suffocating Uighur voices," Rebiya Kadeer, a Uighur rights advocate and spokeswoman for the Uighur American Association, said in a statement.
"Chinese authorities are committing an egregious violation of
human rights and the freedom of expression by imprisoning these three men, who have done nothing more than work for websites and voice their opinions," Kadeer said.
Last year's protest in Urumqi erupted into violence after police confronted the Uighur demonstrators.
Uighurs later rampaged through the city attacking ethnic Han residents, which prompted revenge attacks against Uighurs and left Urumqi deeply divided.
The government said 197 people died and hundreds more were injured in the violence, while Uighur exile groups claimed that up to 800 people died, mostly Uighurs who were shot or beaten to death by police.
Many of Xinjiang's 8 million Uighurs, a mainly Muslim minority in the region's of nearly 20 million, complain of cultural and religious repression.
The Uighurs claim that ethnic Han migrants - China's dominant ethnicity - enjoy the main benefits of development in the oil-rich but economically backward region.
In May, President
Hu Jintao and other leaders of the ruling Communist Party promised to promote
economic development and social stability "so that all ethnic groups in the region can live a more prosperous and happier life."
