Beijing - Chinese authorities on Saturday denied claims by a
purported Uighur separatist group of a terrorist connection to the
July 21 bus attacks in Yunnan province and a May 5 attack in
Shanghai.
In a three-minute-long video placed on the internet Saturday, a
shrouded person claiming to be a commander of the Turkestan Islamic
Party called for attacks in China during the Olympics games. The
video also claimed that the group was behind a series of explosions
in China in the past months.
'No evidence has been found to indicate the explosions were
connected with terrorists and their attacks, or with the Beijing
Olympics,' a Yunnan government security spokesman was quoted by the
official Xinhua news agency as saying.
Shanghai police also said the May 5 bus attack was not terrorism
related.
Independent experts also questioned the authenticity of the video,
US authority on the Uighur people, Dru Gladney, told Deutsche Presse-
Agency dpa.
Exile Uighur groups have so far not called for any disturbances
during the Olympic Games.
International security experts have linked the Turkestan Islamic
Party with the East Turkestan Independence Movement (ETIM), both of
which are considered terrorist groups by China and the United States.
Gladney however pointed out that the ETIM has not been in
operation for years. The movement, should it still exist, he said,
did not have many adherents to begin with, adding that the China
generally uses the name ETIM as label for all Uighur independence
groups.
Xinjiang province in north-western China is along with Tibet a
source of political tension in China. The territory's Turkic Muslim
Uighurs have complained of repression by Chinese authorities. After
the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the former
East Turkestan was annexed as an autonomous region - in a similar
manner to Tibet.
Exile Uighurs have called for the reestablishment of a former East
Turkestani republic.
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