Uyghur Woman Released, Without Forced Abortion

North Korean Gulag Escapee Speaks Out www.rfa.org/english/news/korea/book-11162008180959.html

Asian Women in their own words www.rfa.org/english/news/women

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.

If you no longer wish to receive RFA press releases, send an e-mail to engnews-leave@rfanews.org. To add your name to our mailing list, send an e-mail to engnews-join@rfanews.org #####