Irja Halasz
ULAN BATOR, Feb. 28 (1996) (Reuters) - Human rights activists in Mongolia called on Beijing on Wednesday to free ethnic minority dissidents detained in Inner Mongolia and other regions of China for opposing Chinese communist rule.
The Union of Human Rights in Inner Mongolia, the Inner Mongolia Revival Movement and Inner Mongolian Youth Centre said in a published appeal that global pressure was needed.
'We call for help and support for the peoples of Inner Mongolia, Tibet and Xinjiang who are fighting for freedom and independence,' said the appeal seen in the Il Tovchuu newspaper.
It demanded that China free `thousands of innocent Tibetans, Uighurs, Kazakhs and other non-Chinese'' from detention and halt ``policies against the people of Inner Mongolia, Tibet and Xinjiang to eliminate them by Sinicising them by force.'`We call on the international community to put political and economic pressure on China's government to immediately release Ulanshuvu, Hada and hundreds of other Inner Mongolians fighting for human rights who been arrested by the Chinese.'Ulanshuvu, a history professor arrested in 1991, and Hada, a bookseller and founder of the Southern Mongolian Democracy Alliance detained in December, are among scores held in the Inner Mongolian capital of Hohhot, the activists said.
`China's government and Communist Party started brutal activities against Inner Mongolians in December 1995,'' Altanbat, an activist based in the Mongolian capital of Ulan Bator, said in an interview.
On several dates in December, Chinese security officials ``by force dispersed the peaceful gatherings and courageous protests of teachers, students and intellectuals,'' he said.
Some 30 students and teachers of the Inner Mongolian Teachers University and Mongolian Language College, both in Hohhot, were rounded up after they protested the December 10 arrest of Hada and fellow activist Heilong, he said.
Some of the students raised pictures of 12th century Mongol ruler Genghis Khan and sang Mongolian nationalist songs during the protests, he told Reuters.
Members of Hada's alliance were accused by Chinese police of taking part in a subversive organization that aimed to engage in ethnically divisive activities, the U.S.-based pressure group Human Rights in China said on February 1.
Chinese authorities are extremely nervous of any independent political organizations that could threaten the Communist Party's absolute rule and are particularly suspicious of ethnic groups that could jeopardize national unity.
The communist regime, founded in 1949, inherited the borders of the ancient Chinese empire, which contained dozens of non-Chinese ethnic groups.
Despite its anti-colonialist rhetoric, Beijing has steadfastly suppressed calls for independence by any ethnic minority regions. Inner Mongolia, Tibet and largely Moslem Xinjiang ostensibly enjoy autonomy but in reality are tightly controlled by ethnic Han Chinese sent from Beijing.
Beijing has buttressed its rule in minority areas by resettling millions of Han from crowded parts of China.
Mongolia, which has a pact with China in which the neighbours agreed not to interfere in each other's domestic affairs, was unlikely to support the appeal, the activist said.
