NUR-SULTAN, July 29 — A court in ex-Soviet Kazakhstan held a first hearing today of a case against a Chinese-born activist accused of inciting ethnic discord while opposing Beijing’s crackdown in its troubled Xinjiang region.
Serikjan Bilash, a naturalised Kazakh citizen born in China, was detained in March before being placed under house arrest.
The popular campaigner has helped spotlight alleged rights abuses perpetrated against Turkic minorities in Xinjiang. Critics say his arrest appeared to be the result of pressure from Kazakhstan’s economically powerful neighbour.
Bilash’s supporters—mostly ethnic Kazakhs born in China—packed a court in the Kazakh capital Nur-Sultan Monday and cheered after a judge ruled that the case be transferred to a court in Almaty, Kazakhstan’s largest city.
Bilash’s lawyer Aiman Umarova had appealed for the switch, citing Bilash’s desire to serve house arrest in his home city with his family, from whom he has been separated since his detention.
The Communist Party’s dragnet in Xinjiang has swept up an estimated one million ethnic Uighurs and other mostly Muslim minorities into “vocational education centres” that numerous studies and reports say are instead harsh internment camps.
There are around 1.5 million Kazakhs in Xinjiang, making them the second largest Turkic group in the region after the Uighurs.
Kazakhs living in Kazakhstan have used Bilash’s informal rights group Atajurt to appeal to the Kazakh government to lobby China for their relatives’ release.
Kazakhstan has refused to register the group, which volunteers say is due to pressure from major trade partner Beijing.
In May, Bilash called for an informational “jihad” to oppose Chinese pressure on minorities in Xinjiang.
He faces a maximum penalty of seven years in jail for the comments, which his supporters say have been taken out of context.
Kazakhstan’s foreign ministry claimed last year that China had allowed 2,500 ethnic Kazakhs to leave the country and enter Kazakhstan but refused requests for further information. — AFP
