At least 39 people in China’s far-western Muslim-majority Xinjiang region have been sentenced to up to 15 years in jail on charges of “taking part in terrorist activities”, authorities said on Wednesday.
The mass sentencing follows a number of attacks in recent weeks targeting railway stations that left at least 30 people killed and more than 200 hundred injured in three cities. The incidents were blamed on Uighur terrorist groups from Xinjiang.
The Regional Higher People’s Court in Xinjiang, which borders Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) and Central Asian countries, on Wednesday said 39 people were sentenced in 16 separate trials conducted over the past month. They were found guilty of “spreading videos that incited violence, organising and taking part in terrorist activities, advocating ethnic hatred and illegally manufacturing firearms,” the official Xinhua news agency said.
The court said recent months had seen “a surge in organised terrorist crimes”, with the sentences aimed at serving “a warning to those who have religious extremist thoughts”.
