Court Sentences Uighur Editor to Three Years Imprisonment for "Splittist" Story

A court in Kashgar city, Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR), has sentenced Korash Huseyin, the senior editor of the Kashgar Literature Journal, to three years imprisonment for publishing a short story in late 2004 that Chinese authorities allege "incites ethnic splittism," according to a November 11 Radio Free Asia report. Nurmemet Yasin, the author, is already serving a prison sentence; the Kashgar Intermediate People's Court sentenced him in February to 10 years imprisonment for "inciting splittism." Both Huseyin and Yasin are members of the Uighur ethnic group.

The Literature Journal published Yasin’s Wild Pigeon, which relates the tale of a wild pigeon captured and caged by humans that commits suicide rather than live without freedom. Chinese authorities interpreted the story to be an allegorical criticism of Chinese policies in the XUAR and arrested Yasin in November 2004.