Uighur executions — something amiss?

The New Dominion finds something suspiciously awry about the public trial and executions of two Uighur men last Wednesday. While Reuters UK sums up a Radio Free Asia report (published by the New York Times on Saturday) asserting that "The Kashgar Intermediate People's Court sentenced two men — Mukhtar Setiwaldi and Abduweli Imin — to death and immediately executed them after a July 9 public trial in Yengi Sheher county," The New Dominion claims to have translated a Chinese-language article on the trial and executions of the exact same men — for the exact same crime — last November.

RFA claims that on the 9th, these two individuals were executed summarily after a public trial, during which they were accused of plotting terrorist activities and managing a hidden terrorist base of operations starting from August 2005. The plot was broken up when the police raided their hideout in January of 2007. However, we found a Chinese language article describing an uncannily similar trial being conducted in November of last year, with the same charges against the same individuals, with the same result (two summary executions, two delayed executions, and a number of other non-capital sentences). I vividly remember recalling when we looked at the article at the time being quite surprised that no international news agencies were picking up on the execution of alleged East Turkestan terrorists - only to be quite surprised to find out they finally picked up the scent, only 8 months later. We are thus facing a time-traveling trial and execution: did this happen just a few days ago, or did it happen last November?

The New Dominion offers two possible explanations for this perplexing situation: either the "real" trial occurred in November and this is merely a show trial to intimidate local Uighurs, or the CCP has "adopted a strategy of sometimes providing different versions of events in Mandarin and in English."