CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA 2008 Report

Human rights abuses in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) remain severe, and repression increased in the past

year. As detailed by the Commission in past Annual Reports,1 the government uses anti-terrorism campaigns as a pretext for enforcing repressive security measures and for controlling expressions of religious and ethnic identity, especially among the ethnic Uyghur population, within which it alleges the presence of separatist activity