Program exposes ex-Xinjiang officials

A documentary which was broadcast on Friday revealed that some former senior officials of the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region were actually "two-faced people" who were behind regional sabotage activities but acted as if they were fighters against terrorism and extremism.

"The War in the Shadows"－a 55-minute documentary produced by China Global Television Network－has revealed how some officials hidden in government bodies had backed the spread of extremism and terrorism in Xinjiang.

Such people include Shirzat Bawudun, former police chief in Moyu county of Hotan and then head of the Xinjiang regional justice department and deputy secretary of the Political and Legal Commission of Communist Party of China Xinjiang Committee, and Sattar Sawut, former director of the Xinjiang regional education department.

"Those 'two-faced people' are the enemies in the shadows," Murat Sheripjan, deputy director of the Public Security Department of Hotan prefecture, said in the documentary. "We have to spot and eliminate them from the system. Otherwise, we can never remove the soil for terrorism."

He said these "two-faced people" in key positions have created many obstacles in rooting out terrorist and extremist forces as they have offered protection to them and even become their agents. "As a result, the influence of those forces expanded."

The documentary shows the detailed route of how Shirzat Bawudun secretly collaborated with extremists and even the East Turkistan Islamic Movement, and facilitated their activities in Xinjiang.

When he became the police chief of Moyu county, Bawudun knew he had got the position and power to realize his dream, he said in an interview.

"Then I had the so-called dream of a country of our own (the Uygurs), so I began to get in touch with prominent figures in religious extremism," he said.

Bawudun backed Ablajan Bakri, former imam of Moyu Grand Mosque and a former member of the China Islamic Association, because he knew Ablajan had been preaching religious extremism at the mosque. He then used the imam to attract believers to his cause and incite young people to engage in terrorist activities, according to a police investigation.

In 2003, Ablajan introduced Bawudun to Tayir Abbas, a key member of the ETIM in Egypt. The terrorist organization is also known as the Turkistan Islamic Party that aims to separate the region of Xinjiang from China and build the independent state of "East Turkistan".

To fund Tayir's separatist activities, Bawudun used his power to support two brothers from Moyu to start businesses. In September 2012, he encouraged them to join the TIP after they met with Tayir in Egypt.

With the support of Bawudun, more than 60 Uygur teenagers aged between 14 and 18 were later sent overseas to receive training so they could come back to "liberate" Xinjiang, the documentary said.

"I then would become the leader of the state of 'East Turkistan'," Bawudun said. "It's like a bottomless pit, in which I kept sinking."

Bawudun also shared anti-terrorism information with TIP members. To pretend he was against terrorism and extremism, Bawudun rooted out some terrorist cells that were already exposed, but tolerated those that were only being suspected and those that were hidden, according to his confession.

"The result was that repeated strikes failed to take effect. The dying embers just kept flaring up," he said.

Having supporters within government bodies, the terrorists then knew they could act so boldly, said Murat, the deputy head of Hotan police.

Besides offering support to extremism, terrorism and separatism, some former officials chose to poison the minds of the younger generation so they could be turned into separatists.

In 2016, there were reports of errors in the 2003 and 2009 editions of Uygur-language textbooks for primary and middle schools. The textbooks even featured the "national emblem" of the so-called "East Turkistan". This was the work of Sattar Sawut, the former chief education official in Xinjiang.

Sattar, who was also head of the Xinjiang Basic Education Curriculum Reform Group, saw the opportunity to groom "successors" by including content on "ethnic oppression" in the textbooks, especially about those revolting against the state for "independence".

"I always wanted to use my powers to spread ethnic chauvinist sentiments and even extremist errors among more Uygurs," he said in the documentary. "It was meant to control their minds and influence them to turn them into separatists."

Since 2002, he established a team including the former deputy director of the Xinjiang regional education department, two heads of the Xinjiang Educational Publishing House and two editors with radical separatist thoughts to work on the textbooks.

"The textbooks were meant to encourage the students to seek their cultural origins and roots from outside China and incite ethnic hatred by distorting historical facts," said Alimjan Memetimin, a member of the team and former deputy director of the Xinjiang regional education department.

Those textbooks had been used in schools in Xinjiang for 13 years. "Many people involved in terrorist attacks in recent years were growing up with those textbooks. I think I have ruined the lives of the children," Sattar said.

All of the three former officials who had acted as "two-faced people" were given death sentences with a two-year reprieve, according to the documentary.