Rise in terrorist attacks driven by ‘cancerous’ online materials
Print Edition
THE East Turkestan Islamic Movement released 73 audio and video messages promoting terrorism in the first half of the year, the State Internet Information Office said in a TV program yesterday.
The output of the terrorist group has been growing rapidly in recent years and has coincided with a surge in the number of terror attacks carried out in the name of Islam across China, the office said in the documentary on CCTV’s English-language channel.
In 2010, the ETIM terrorist forces publicized just eight messages. The number rose to 13 in 2011 and 32 in 2012, before soaring to 107 last year, the program said.
Almost all of the terrorists captured in China in recent years were driven by terrorist messages calling for “jihad,” or “holy war, “such as those produced by the ETIM, it said.
Terrorist messages were directly linked to the two attacks earlier this year in Urumqi, capital of northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, officials said.
The first was at a railway station on April 30 in which three people were killed, and the second at a market on May 22, in which 39 people died.
The ETIM claimed responsibility for the April 30 incident and also said it was to blame for the attack at Beijing’s Tian’anmen Square last October, in which three tourists and three of eight terror suspects were killed.
The program also profiled ETIM member Ismail Yusup, who is said to have coordinated several terrorist attacks from overseas. He fled China last year and is being sought by police.
The documentary said that many of the terror videos identified by the authorities were produced outside China and uploaded to the Internet from servers in Turkey.
Both the United States and United Nations classed ETIM as a terrorist organization in 2002, following the September 11, 2001, attacks in New York. China concurred in 2003.
At a press conference yesterday, the SIIO said it is now commonplace for terrorist groups to use the Internet to recruit people, raise funds and plan attacks in China.
Spokesman Jiang Jun referred to terror materials as a “cancer” of the Internet, adding that terrorist forces have “turned the Internet into a principal tool for their operations.”
Groups “spread terrorism and violent beliefs, and teach terrorist skills online,” he said.
All such practices must be eradicated, he said.
The government on Friday launched a campaign to rid the Internet of all materials that promote terrorism and violence. More than 30 websites, including Sina, Tencent, Baidu and Taobao, have signed up to help.
The office said the move is aimed at safeguarding social stability in Xinjiang.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
