Xinjiang arrests nearly doubled

Editor's Note: Provincial regions and cities in China are holding their annual conferences of lawmakers and political advisers. To inform our readers of the latest changes in various parts of the country, China Daily is reporting about some of these conferences.

Prosecutors in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region approved the arrests of 27,164 criminal suspects last year, an increase of more than 95 percent year-on-year, as Xinjiang launched a strike-hard campaign to combat violent and terrorist activities, the chief prosecutor of the region said on Thursday.

"We've shortened the time between approving arrests and prosecution in major terrorist-related cases so the suspects can be tried as soon as possible to show the region's determination to fight terrorism in accordance with the law," Nixiang Yibulayin, chief prosecutor of the Xinjiang People's Procuratorate, said in the Work Report he delivered at the annual session of the 12th Xinjiang regional People's Congress, which started on Tuesday in the regional capital of Urumqi.

The speedy prosecutions include the terrorist attack at a morning market in Urumqi on May 22, which left 39 people dead and 94 injured, and the terrorist attack in Shache county, southern Xinjiang's Kashgar prefecture, which claimed 37 lives and injured 13 others on July 28, he said.

A series of deadly terrorist attacks occurred in Xinjiang last year, and religious extremism is believed to be the cause of the increasing violence.

A yearlong campaign to reduce terrorist attacks was launched on May 23 and will be extended to at least the end of this year.

Meanwhile, the number of criminal cases handled by courts in Xinjiang has increased by 45 percent year-on-year, Nayim Yassen, president of the Xinjiang People's High Court, said on Thursday.

"We have organized training for judges around Xinjiang," he said.

To effectively fight terrorism, the regional people's congress has proposed that the National People's Congress, the nation's top legislator, draft an anti-terrorism law, said Wang Yongming, deputy director of the standing committee of the regional people's congress.

The research group working on the draft of China's first anti-terrorism law was sent to the region by the NPC last May to seek advice from Xinjiang, Wang said.