India revokes visa for Germany-based Uighur activist

India has revoked a tourist visa given to a Germany-based ethnic Uighur activist to attend an upcoming conference at the headquarters of the Tibetan government-in-exile in northern India, an official said yesterday.
Indian Home Ministry spokesman K.S. Dhatwalia refused to say why the government had decided to cancel the visa for Dolkun Isa, who is on a Chinese terrorist list.
Isa told Indian TV news channel TimesNow that the government notified him Saturday that the electronic visa given to him earlier this month had been revoked. He said there was no explanation, but speculated it may have been because of Chinese pressure on the Indian government.
China’s leaders are concerned about violence in the far western region of Xinjiang, which is home to the Uighurs, a mostly Muslim ethnic Turkic minority that has chafed at Beijing’s heavy-handed rule and restrictions on language and religious practices. Hundreds of people have died in violent attacks that the government blames on militant Islamic separatists.
Beijing has long been wary of independence-minded militants in Xinjiang and has kept tight controls over the region. It began labeling the militants terrorists in 2001 in a bid to win international support for the struggle against the militants. Scholars have argued that China’s stifling policies in the region — including restrictions on beards and veils — have marginalized the Uighurs and fueled militancy.
Tsering Tsomo, executive director of the Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy, expressed disappointment at the revocation of Isa’s visa. The center is one of the organizers of this weekend’s interfaith leadership conference that Isa had been planning to attend in Dharmsala, where the Tibetan government-in-­exile is headquartered.
“We just wanted a small group of like-minded people to come and exchange their views in a free and democratic manner,” Tsomo said in a statement in Dharmsala. “The aim was to help improve the human rights situation in China.”
The Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader, has been living in Dharmsala since he fled Tibet in 1959. Beijing accuses him of seeking to separate Tibet from China. But Tibetans and the Dalai Lama say they simply want a high degree of autonomy under Chinese rule. AP