Terrorist attack at Tiananmen Square

CHINA: EIGHT “TERRORISTS” EXECUTED IN XINJIANG

August 24, 2014: the official Xinhua news agency said eight people were executed for “terrorist attacks”, including three sentenced to death for their role in a suicide car crash in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in October 2013.
Reportedly, the eight were Uyghur separatist militants involved in a string of attacks that have rocked China since 2013.
Three of the condemned were named by Xinhua as Huseyin Guxur, Yusup Wherniyas and Yusup Ehmet. “They masterminded the terrorist attack” at Tiananmen Square, Xinhua said. The Tiananmen attack was one of several that have rocked China. Two tourists were killed in the attack, in which a car rammed into bystanders on the iconic square in the heart of Beijing before bursting into flames. Three attackers also died in the incident Beijing blamed on Xinjiang separatists.
Xinhua said five others were executed for terrorist activities: Rozi Eziz, who was convicted of an attack on police in Aksu in 2013; Abdusalam Elim, who was executed on charges of “organising and leading a terrorist organisation”; Memet Tohtiyusup, who had “watched audio-visual materials on religious extremism” and “killed an innocent civilian” in 2013; Abdumomin Imin, who was described as a “terrorist ringleader” who led Bilal Berdi in attacks on police in 2011 and 2013.
Xinhua, which cited the Xinjiang region publicity department in its report, did not say when the executions were carried out.
The executions and sentences are part of a crackdown that comes after Beijing vowed a year-long campaign against terrorism in the wake of the May 2014 attack at a market in Xinjiang’s capital Urumqi. Thirty-nine people were killed, along with four attackers, and more than 90 wounded when assailants threw explosives and ploughed two off-road vehicles through a crowd.
In June, 13 people were executed for Xinjiang linked terrorist attacks. Dilxat Raxit, a spokesman for the World Uyghur Congress exile group, in an email criticised the legal process surrounding the executions, calling it a “typical (case) of justice serving politics.” (Sources: AFP, 24/08/2014)