Separatist Group

Authorities in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region revealed on April 6 that they had busted a separatist criminal group in the educational sector.

The group’s leader was

Sattar Sawut, former Director of the Xinjiang education department and former head of the region’s leading group on basiceducation curriculum reform. They incorporated ethnic separatism, violence, terrorism, and religious extremism content into minority-language textbooks. These books had been in use for 13 years. It had grave consequences, Wang Langtao, Vice President of the Xinjiang regional higher people’s court, said at a press conference on April 6.

Sawut was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve after being found guilty of crimes of separatism, taking bribes and several other crimes.

Sawut, born in November 1947 in Toksun County, Xinjiang, pleaded guilty to the crimes and did not file an appeal against the verdict.

Sawut took advantage of compiling and publishing ethnic language textbooks for primary and secondary schools to split the country, starting in 2002. He then instructed others to pick several people with separatist views to join the textbook compilation team.

Sawut demanded they incorporate content that preached ethnic separatism, violence, terrorism, and religious extremism into the textbooks to split the state.

The investigation also found 84 texts preaching ethnic separatism, violence, terrorism, and religious extremism in the 2003 and 2009 editions of the textbooks.

Under the influence of the textbooks, several people (already convicted) participated in terrorist attacks in Urumqi on July 5, 2009, and April 30, 2014, respectively, or became key members of a separatist group headed by former college teacher Ilham Tohti, the court found.

Sawut also took advantage of his government posts to accept bribes amounting to a total of 15.05 million yuan ($2.3 million).