Dilxat Raxit: Radio Free Asia

World Uyghur Congress Dept: The government-run news portal Tianshan Net reported that a Kashgar court on Tuesday found 19 Uighurs in four groups guilty of spreading multimedia materials promoting terrorism. It said one of the groups plotted to assassinate local law officers, and that another tested bombs, according to Montreal Gazette. Dilxat Raxit, of the Germany-based World Uyghur Congress, said the punishments were draconian and used to suppress the ethnic Muslim Uighurs. Dilxat said the men did innocuous things like listen to Radio Free Asia and forward video clips downloaded from YouTube, a video-sharing site that cannot be directly accessed from China but can be reached through proxy servers. Dilxat said their activities were aimed at spreading religious knowledge and preserving their ethnic culture and lifestyle and BEIJING, China - Twenty ethnic Uighurs in China's far western region of Xinjiang have been given sentences of up to life in prison following their convictions on charges including terrorism and separatism, Chinese state media reported. Tianshan said another Xinjiang court sentenced one Uighur man to 10 years in prison for spreading online terrorism. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.