Recently, The New Dominion commented on a report regarding a video of an attack on three Chinese men, one apparently produced or packaged with the intent to rally Xinjiang Uyghur Muslims against Chinese rule. Venkatesan Vambu at India’s Daily News & Analysis (DNA) has published an article on the video. His article tracks the discovery of the video by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) and intelligently discusses its possible significance.
We at The New Dominion have also been privileged to view the short video. This is a description of what it shows:
About ten seconds in, the video opens with the Uyghur passage pakistanning pishawur shähiridä xitay jallatlirigha berilgän zärbä, meaning “A blow to the Chinese(pejorative) butchers in the city of Peshawar, Pakistan.” This is the only Uyghur in the entire video; the rest, what little is spoken, appears to be in Urdu, with music in Arabic. There are also a few short words of Arabic displayed at the beginning and end of the video.
Next, we see some clips of three men, apparently Chinese, in their underwear, standing in a doorway in a bare apartment at night. A man holding a gun, his face off-screen, forces them to line up in the doorway. They seem confused and unaware of what is about to happen. One of them is shown yelling at his assailant, though not in Chinese, and possibly in Urdu.
Then, the man holding the gun, wearing what appears to be Pakistani dress (shalwar kameez), is seen more fully. He shoots one of the Chinese men, who falls. One crouches down and turns to his companion. The other jumps off to the left. The one kneeling is shot next. The one who ran is shot less than a moment afterward. Where he falls, a dog runs out of the way. The man with the gun keeps shooting the fallen men. All through this section, the handheld camera zips around, and the individual holding it runs up behind the gunman to record the executions in more detail. What we see next is a montage of newspapers, apparently in Urdu, concerning the shooting of three men in Peshawar. These newspapers show photographs of the dead men and one other injured man who is not seen in the video.
The video appears to be connected with – though how is unclear – the shooting of three Chinese citizens in Peshawar, Pakistan in July 2007, following the massacre at the Lal Mosque in Islamabad. The exact connection is uncertain. If this is the video of the shooting of these men, why has it not been released until now? The newspaper clippings in the video also show an injured fourth man, reported by some media accounts of the Peshawar incident. Where was this man – possibly the father and uncle of the murdered men – and how was he injured and not killed, as were his companions?
Were three men shot to death just for the sake of stirring up dissent? I cannot think of another reason why someone would videotape a murder. Vambu’s article states that the video has since spread to several Uyghur-language websites. How is this being received, with disgust or with triumph? I feel that this is a gross manipulation, a somewhat unskilled and thuggish attempt at manipulating dissatisfied Uyghurs. I wonder how much on-the-ground impact it can really have and which audience, exactly, it is reaching. If angry young Uyghur men are seeing this, are they stirred to violence in the name of Islam, or might they at most enjoy it out of a guilty and immature racism? Could this even be part of an attempt to worsen Sino-Pakistani relations, which have been slightly uneasy since the election of the new government? All in all, it seems that Vambu’s conclusions are correct: this is not a Uyghur-made video. It is, at least, not a video of a Uyghur killing Chinese people. It is a video packaged to affect the politics of Xinjiang, China, and Pakistan. I sincerely hope that anyone who happens to view it will recognize the attempt at manipulation for what it is.
Comments 5
You say here that the video is not Uyghur-made, but the article says:
Eric Schluessel, a Xinjiang scholar at Indiana University’s Department of Central Eurasian Studies, points out that the language on the IPT seal graphic and on the organisation’s website “suggest that these were all produced by Xinjiang Uyghurs.”
Are you suggesting that Schluessel was wrong on this point?
Posted 26 Apr 2008 at 7:01 pm ¶@Booya: No, I think the point was that the opening of the video and graphical items like the seal were Uyghur dressing on an al-Qaeda/Taliban/whatever salad.
@Porfiriy/OpkeHessip: So what’s up with the video? Are we gonna see it? How about a little more detail on how you managed to locate the video?
Posted 27 Apr 2008 at 3:16 am ¶Michael, you’re spot-on. Booya, I think the statement in question is somewhat of a misquote, having been taken from TND’s original article on the video:
“The language on the IPT seal graphic, the word on the video still, and the IPT site – including Romanization, font, and other linguistic clues – suggest that these were all produced by Xinjiang Uyghurs.”
Note the italics on “suggest” — not “demonstrate”, but “suggest”. (Note also that the article directly lifted our transliteration of Shärqiy Türkistan Islam Härikiti…) The video does not, itself, have anything to indicate that it was originally “Uyghur-made”. However, the presentation of the video, as well as some of the linguistic paraphernalia surrounding it, do indeed support the idea that a Xinjiang Uyghur was involved in its packaging. Perhaps, as I said in my post, someone wants to make this seem like a piece of native Uyghur media.
Posted 27 Apr 2008 at 7:01 am ¶not sure if this is viewable in China. Mahsum apotheosised as Uyghur Jihad leader prop.cliP:
SHAHEED HASAN MAHSUM RAHIMALLAH
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pDeARKKupI&feature=related
Posted 11 May 2008 at 6:24 pm ¶I suppose this follows on:
MEMRI Email Newsletter
Special Dispatch | No. 1947 | June 3, 2008
Islamist Websites Monitor Project
“The Islamic Party of East Turkestan” [i.e. Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, Chinese Turkestan] Posts Its Platform on an Islamist Forum
“The Islamic Party of East Turkestan” is a jihadist group operating in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (also known as Chinese Turkestan or Uyghuristan), a region in northwestern China inhabited mostly by Muslims.
On May 21, 2008, the Islamist forum Al-Ikhlas (hosted by Piradius.net in Malaysia) posted the party’s platform, as issued by its media department. The document sets out the party’s goals and beliefs.
The following are excerpts from the platform document:
“We are a group that promotes jihad for the sake of Allah… Its members, [united in] monotheism, devoutness, piety, and jihad for the sake of Allah, aim to liberate Muslim East Turkestan from the apostate Communist Chinese occupation… and impose shari’a [law] in [this region]. By cooperating with the Muslim mujahideen throughout the Islamic world [we aim to] restore the Islamic Caliphate and impose shari’a throughout the world.”
“Our Goals Are:
“To train the Muslim Turkestani youth to wage jihad…”
“To prepare the Muslim Turkestani masses [for jihad] and to bring them back to the right path [i.e. to the Salafi creed]…”
“To cooperate with all the groups waging jihad for the sake of Allah throughout the world, in order to repel the attacks of the apostates… and drive the Crusaders, Zionists and apostates from our Islamic world…”
“Principles:
“We believe that, like most Muslim countries, East Turkestan is under the direct and indirect occupation of apostates… and is governed by secular and democratic constitutions and laws…
“We believe that if Muslim countries are under direct or indirect occupation… waging jihad against those who rule them and subject them to apostate laws becomes a mandatory [duty].
“We believe that, since the apostate attacker has invaded our lands, jihad in the path of Allah has become a personal duty incumbent upon every Muslim in Turkestan…”
“We deem it necessary to impose shari’a in East Turkestan and in all [other] Muslim countries after they are liberated from the imperialists and apostates…
“We believe that any presence of the apostate Chinese occupiers – be it military, governmental, political or economic – is a legitimate target for jihad… This statement is a declaration of war upon them, and they must therefore leave East Turkestan immediately.”
“We consider the presence of Chinese immigrants in Muslim East Turkestan illegitimate. They represent the most tangible form of Chinese occupation… They must leave Turkestan and return to their places of origin. This statement is [our] first and last warning [to them]…
“We reject… all symbols of Jahili [i.e. non-Islamic] nationalism, as well as the deviant [ideology of] democracy in all its forms, and [declare] our opposition to them…
“We are an independent, organized Islamic group, under the command of an Emir and a leadership… in accordance with the Islamic principles of shura [consultation].”
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Posted 04 Jun 2008 at 10:42 am ¶Trackbacks & Pingbacks 3
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