Uyghur Woman Released, Without Forced Abortion
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HONG KONG-An ethnic Uyghur woman in China's northwestern Xinjiang region
who was scheduled to undergo a second-term abortion against her will-and
whose case drew international attention-has been released to her family
and allowed to continue her pregnancy, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reports.
"I am all right and I am at home now," Arzigul Tursun told RFA's Uyghur
service, shortly after she was released from the Women and Children's
Welfare Hospital in Ili prefecture.
"I brought her home," the local population-control committee chief,
Rashide, said. "She wasn't in good enough health to have an abortion."
Tursun's case prompted calls to the Chinese authorities from two members
of the U.S. Congress and from the U.S. ambassador in Beijing for a
planned abortion of her pregnancy to be scrapped.
Police tracked down Arzigul Tursun, six months pregnant with her third
child, at a relative's home Monday afternoon after she fled Gulja's
municipal Water Gate Hospital, relatives said.
China's one-child-per-family policy applies mainly to majority Han
Chinese and allows ethnic minorities, including Uyghurs, to have
additional children, with peasants permitted to have three children and
city-dwellers two.
But while Tursun is a peasant, her husband is from the city of Gulja [in
Chinese, Yining], so their status is unclear. The couple live with their
two children in Bulaq village, Dadamtu township, in Gulja, in the remote
northwestern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
Their experience sheds rare light on how China's one-child policy is
enforced in remote parts of the country through fines, financial
incentives, and heavy-handed coercion by zealous local officials eager
to meet population targets set by cadres higher up.
Police operation
On Monday, Tursun's father, Hasan Tursunjan, said, between 20 and 30
police cars came to the family home to search for his daughter and take
her to the hospital to terminate her pregnancy.
"It was a big operation-and they treated us very rudely," he said. "They
confiscated all out cellphones, but I hid one. One of them was pushing
my forehead and saying, 'You have connections with the separatists in
America-see if they can come and rescue your daughter or not.'"
"I was very upset of what he did to me and said, 'I believe they will
rescue us, if not today then tomorrow, and if not tomorrow then the day
after tomorrow-they will eventually rescue us,'" Tursunjan said.
"My youngest son was upset and rushed to us and shouted... 'Don't touch
my father!' The [official] immediately called a few police over and they
arrested him. They took him away with a car."
High-level intervention
Two members of the U.S. Congress called on authorities in China to
release Tursun and cancel the planned abortion
Rep. Joe Pitts of Pennsylvania on Monday urged officials to "immediately
intervene in order to stop any forced abortion from taking place." On
Friday, Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey, ranking member on the
Congressional-Executive Commission on China, called forced abortions a
"barbaric practice" and made a personal appeal to Chinese ambassador
Zhou Wenzhong.
On Monday, Smith said he had spoken with Zhou, who said he would look
into the case. Smith also contacted U.S. Ambassador to China Clark Randt
and asked him to intervene. Randt spoke with the executive vice foreign
minister Wang Guanya, Smith's office said.
Detailed policy
According to China's official news agency, Xinhua, Uyghurs in the
countryside are permitted three children while city-dwellers may have
two.
Under "special circumstances," rural families are permitted one more
child, although what constitutes special circumstances was unclear.
The government also uses financial incentives and disincentives to keep
the birthrate low.
Couples can also pay steep fines to have more children, although the
fines are well beyond most people's means.
The official Web site China Xinjiang Web reports that in Kashgar, Hotan,
and Kizilsu [in Chinese, Kezilesu], areas populated almost entirely by
Uyghurs, women over 49 with only one child are entitled to a one-time
payment of 3,000 yuan (U.S. $440), with the couple receiving 600 yuan
(U.S. $88) yearly afterward.
China's official Tianshan Net reported that population control policies
in Xinjiang have prevented the births of some 3.7 million people over
the last 30 years.
And according to China Xinjiang Web on Sept. 26, 2008, the government
will spend 25.6 million yuan (U.S. $3.7 million) this year rewarding
families who have followed the population policy.
The one-child policy is enforced more strictly in cities, but penalties
for exceeding a family's quota can be severe, including job losses,
demotions, or expulsion from the Party, experts say.
Officials at all levels are subject to rewards or penalties based on
whether they meet population targets set by their administrative region.
Citizens are legally entitled to sue officials who they believe have
overstepped their authority in enforcing the policy.
Tense relations
Relations between Chinese authorities and the predominantly Muslim
Uyghur population have a long and tense history, with many Uyghurs
objecting in particular to the mass immigration of Han Chinese to the
region and to Beijing's population-control policy.
Uyghurs formed two short-lived East Turkestan republics in the 1930s and
40s during the Chinese civil war and the Japanese invasion.
But China subsequently took control of the region, and Beijing has in
recent years launched a campaign against Uyghur separatism, which it
calls a war on Islamic terrorism. It has also accused "hostile forces"
in the West of fomenting unrest in the strategically important and
resource-rich region, which borders several countries in Central Asia.
Original reporting in Uyghur by Shohret Hoshur. Uyghur service director:
Dolkun Kamberi. Translated by Alim Abdulkerim. Written and produced in
English by Sarah Jackson-Han.
Radio Free Asia is a private, nonprofit corporation broadcasting and
publishing online news, information, and commentary in nine East Asian
languages to listeners who do not have access to full and free news
media. RFA's broadcasts seek to promote the rights of freedom of opinion
and expression, including the freedom to "seek, receive, and impart
information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."
RFA is funded by an annual grant from the Broadcasting Board of
Governors.
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Uyghur Woman Faces Imminent Forced Abortion
Also on www.rfa.org: China's Quake Victims Face Grim Winter
www.rfa.org/english/news/forced%20abortion-11132008173803.html
HONG KONG-Arzigul Tursun, six months pregnant with her third child, is under guard in a hospital in China's northwestern Xinjiang region, scheduled to undergo an abortion against her will because authorities say she is entitled to only two children.
As a member of the predominantly Muslim Uyghur minority, Tursun is legally permitted to more than the one child allowed most people in China. But when word of a third pregnancy reached local authorities, they coerced her into the hospital for an abortion, her husband told Radio Free Asia (RFA).
"Arzigul is being kept in bed number three," a nurse in the women's section at Gulja's Water Gate Hospital said in a telephone interview with RFA's Uyghur service.
"We will give an injection first. Then she will experience abdominal pain, and the baby will come out by itself. But we haven't given her any injection yet-we are waiting for instructions from the doctors."
China's one-child-per-family policy applies mainly to majority Han Chinese but allows ethnic minorities, including Uyghurs, to have additional children, with peasants permitted to have three children and city-dwellers two.
But while Tursun is a peasant, her husband, Nurmemet Tohtasin, is from the city of Gulja [in Chinese, Yining] so their status is unclear. The couple live with their two children in Bulaq village, Dadamtu township, in Gulja.
Their experience sheds rare light on how China's one-child policy is enforced in remote parts of the country, through fines, financial incentives, and heavy-handed coercion by zealous local officials eager to meet population targets set by cadres higher up.
"My wife is being kept in the hospital-village officials are guarding her," Tohtisin said before authorities directed him late Thursday to switch off his mobile phone.
"When she fled the village to avoid abortion, police and Party officials, and the family planning committee officials, all came and interrogated us," he said. "The deputy chief of the village, a Chinese woman named Wei Yenhua, threatened that if we didn't find Arzigul and bring her to the village, she would confiscate our land and all our property."
Steep fines
On Nov. 11, Tohtisin said, an official named Rashide from the village family planning committee came to their home and escorted the couple, along with Arzigul's father, to the Gulja's municipal Water Gate Hospital.
There, Tohtisin said, he was pressured into signing forms authorizing an abortion.
"The abortion should be carried out because according to the family planning policy of China, you're not allowed to have more children than the government has regulated. Therefore she should undergo an abortion. This is their third child. She is 6-1/2 months pregnant now," Rashide said.
"If her health is normal, then the abortion will definitely take place. Otherwise they have to pay a fine in the amount of 45,000 yuan (U.S. $6,590)-that's a lot of money, and they won't have it," she added.
Tursun's abortion was originally scheduled for Thursday, but hospital authorities said they had postponed it until Monday after numerous calls from local and exiled Uyghurs.
Officials then told her husband to switch off his mobile phone and stop making calls.
Carrots and sticks
According to the official news agency, Xinhua, Uyghurs in the countryside are permitted three children while city-dwellers may have two. Under "special circumstances," rural families are permitted one more child, although what constitutes special circumstances was unclear. The government also uses financial incentives and disincentives to keep the birthrate low.
Couples can also pay steep fines to have more children, although the fines are well beyond most people's means.
The official Web site China Xinjiang Web reports that in Kashgar, Hotan, and Kizilsu [in Chinese, Kezilesu], areas populated almost entirely by Uyghurs, women over 49 with only one child are entitled to a one-time payment of 3,000 yuan (U.S. $440), with the couple receiving 600 yuan (U.S. $88) yearly afterward.
China's official Tianshan Net reported that population control policies in Xinjiang have prevented the births of some 3.7 million people over the last 30 years.
And according to China Xinjiang Web on Sept. 26, 2008, the government will spend 25.6 million yuan (U.S. $3.7 million) this year rewarding families who have followed the population policy.
The one-child policy is enforced more strictly in cities, but penalties for exceeding a family's quota can be severe, including job losses, demotions, or expulsion from the Party, experts say.
Officials at all levels are subject to rewards or penalties based on whether they meet population targets set by their administrative region.Citizens are legally entitled to sue officials who they believe have overstepped their authority in enforcing the policy.
Congressional appeal
In Washington, Rep. Chris Smith, a Republican from New Jersey in the U.S. House of Representatives, appealed on Thursday to Chinese Ambassador Zhou Wenzhong to intervene.
"Human rights groups and the U.S. government will be watching very carefully to see what happens to Arzigul and her family," Smith, senior member of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, said in a statement. "I appeal to the Chinese government not to forcibly abort Arzigul."
Tense relations
Relations between Chinese authorities and the Uyghur population have a long and tense history.
Uyghurs formed two short-lived East Turkestan republics in the 1930s and 40s during the Chinese civil war and the Japanese invasion. But China subsequently took control of the region, and Beijing has in recent years launched a campaign against Uyghur separatism, which it regards as a war on Islamic terrorism.
It has also accused "hostile forces" in the West of fomenting unrest in the strategically important and resource-rich region, which borders several countries in Central Asia.
Original reporting in Uyghur by Shohret Hoshur. Translated by Omer Kanat. Uyghur service director: Dolkun Kamberi. Written and produced for the Web in English by Sarah Jackson-Han. Edited by Joshua Lipes.
Radio Free Asia is a private, nonprofit corporation broadcasting and publishing online news, information, and commentary in nine East Asian languages to listeners who do not have access to full and free news media. RFA's broadcasts seek to promote the rights of freedom of opinion and expression, including the freedom to "seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." RFA is funded by an annual grant from the Broadcasting Board of Governors.
If you no longer wish to receive RFA press releases, send an e-mail to engnews-leave(a)rfanews.org. To add your name to our mailing list, send an e-mail to engnews-join(a)rfanews.org #####
