Islamic State militants from China’s Uighur ethnic minority have vowed to return home and “shed blood like rivers”, according to a jihadist-tracking firm, in what experts said marked the first IS threat against Chinese targets.

The threat came in a half-hour video released Monday by a division of the Islamic State in western Iraq and featuring militants from China’s Uighur ethnic group, said the US-based SITE Intelligence Group, which analysed the footage.

China has for years blamed exiled Uighur “separatists” for a series of violent attacks in its western Xinjiang region — the Uighur homeland — and warned of the potential for militants to link up with global jihadist groups.

Read also: New Islamic State terror cell using Sabah as transit point uncovered

In the video, a Uighur fighter issued the threat against China just before executing an alleged informant.

“Oh, you Chinese who do not understand what people say! We are the soldiers of the Caliphate, and we will come to you to clarify to you with the tongues of our weapons, to shed blood like rivers and avenging the oppressed,” according to SITE’s translation.

Read also: Islamic State executes three of its Chinese militants: China paper

A traditionally Muslim group, many Uighurs complain of cultural and religious repression and discrimination by China.

It appears to be the Islamic State’s “first direct threat” against China, Dr. Michael Clarke, an expert on Xinjiang at the National Security College of Australian National University, told AFP.

“It is the first time that Uighur-speaking militants have claimed allegiance to IS,” he added.

The video showed China is now “very firmly a target of jihadist rhetoric,” Clarke said, marking a shift from years past when it rarely figured in statements by global jihadist groups.

But Clarke said it also could indicate a possible split among Uighur fighters, as it includes a warning to those fighting with the al Qaeda-aligned Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) in Syria.

Jakarta – King Salman Wednesday began the first visit by a Saudi monarch to Indonesia in almost 50 years, seeking to strengthen economic ties with the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country.

The king – who is accompanied by about 1,000 people, including princes and ministers – disembarked from his official plane at a Jakarta airport and was welcomed by President Joko Widodo and a guard of honour.

Almost 460 tons of equipment have been flown in for the visit, including Mercedes limousines and escalators for the king to descend from his plane. Most has been transported to the resort island of Bali, where the king will take a holiday after visiting Jakarta.

It is the first visit by a Saudi Arabian king to Indonesia for 47 years, and is one of the highlights of a rare Saudi royal tour of Asia which is seeking investment as the world’s biggest oil exporter tries to diversify its economy.

“This is an extremely historic visit for us,” Indonesian Cabinet Secretary Pramono Anung was quoted as saying in local media before the visit.

Salman will hold talks later with Widodo at the Indonesian leader’s official residence in Bogor outside the capital Jakarta. The king will give a speech to parliament on Thursday.

Business deals could be announced, and a series of co-operation memoranda are also set to be signed on issues ranging from security, to health and education during the three-day visit to Jakarta.

Indonesia will also seek approval to send more citizens to the annual hajj pilgrimage in western Saudi Arabia, which is home to Islam’s holiest sites.

Salman will spend several days on Hindu-majority Bali, with the monarch and his entourage reportedly set to stay in five luxury hotels.

Salman kicked off his three-week Asian tour in Malaysia earlier this week, and is also set to visit Japan, China and the Maldives.

This is the horrifying moment a mother in Guangdong, China, was filmed cruelly kicking her baby daughter in the back as she lies screaming on the ground.

The six-second clip shows the woman, wearing a pink jacket, brutally kicking the one-year-old girl against a stone step. She can also be heard shouting at her baby for crying.

The woman then grabs the wailing girl – whom reports say has not learned to walk or crawl yet – by her arms before putting her down again on the hard floor.

According to Chinese news media, the hearbreaking clip was filmed by a bystander on Feb 24 at about 3pm.

It went viral after being shared on social media, with angry netizens berating the ‘heartless’ woman.

According to China News, the woman has been identified as a 27-year-old Hubei native, surnamed Chen, after local police picked up the case.

It reported that Chen had unleashed her fury on the child because she wouldn’t stop crying.

Read also: Father catches maid kicking 2-year-old daughter

According to police, the child was found to have escaped injury and Chen was given a verbal warning after she expressed “deep regret” for her actions.

Her family told police that the mother has not been in a good mental state, and the child is currently being cared for by her grandparents.

candicec@sph.com.sg

The obsessed stalker who stabbed pop idol Mayu Tomita dozens of times in a savage attack last May was yesterday jailed for 14½ years.

Ms Tomita, 21, suffered 34 stab wounds on her face, neck, back and arms, and also has trouble with her vision and difficulty eating and singing since the attack, a district court in Tokyo heard last week.

Prosecutors sought a 17-year sentence for Tomohiro Iwazaki, 28, who was charged with attempted murder, calling his crime “repulsive”. Iwazaki’s lawyers, in mitigation, argued that his actions were sudden and not premeditated.

The verdict is the latest turn in a horrific case that prompted Japan to revise its anti-stalking laws last December to cover social media harassment. Tokyo police, who ignored Ms Tomita’s pleas for help 12 days before the attack, apologised last December for not deeming Iwazaki a looming threat.

Read also: Japanese pop star attacked by knife-wielding fan

Iwazaki had sent her nearly 400 tweets and his idolatry turned to hatred after she refused his gifts, including a watch and books. He approached her on May 21 last year, as she was about to appear at a music event in Koganei in western Tokyo.

Before his sentencing yesterday, Iwazaki said: “I’m really sorry for having caused great trouble to Ms Tomita and her family. I swear in this court that I will never go near Ms Tomita again.”

Ms Tomita testified last week that she is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and is terrified of enclosed public spaces. “I want him to return the life that I was supposed to live. I want him to return my body without scars,” she said.

The undergraduate added: “He is the kind of person who develops some feelings for someone without asking if she feels the same way, and tries to kill the person if things do not go according to his will. He may come and try to kill me this time.”

Iwazaki, agitated by her remarks in court, shouted in response: “Then you should kill me.”

Under Japan’s revised anti-stalking laws, police arrested a man on Monday last week for making threats on Twitter against voice actress Nana Mizuki, 37. Akihiro Fukushima, 32, is alleged to have sent a series of tweets to her, including one on Feb 2 that read “I’ll kill you”.

Walter Sim

This article was first published on Mar 01, 2017.
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Hong Kong – Four rebel Hong Kong lawmakers were in court Wednesday to fight a government bid to disqualify them from parliament, a move criticised as an attack on democracy under pressure from Beijing.

Hong Kong’s unpopular leader Leung Chun-ying and the justice department have brought the case against the pro-democracy legislators who they accuse of failing to properly take their oaths of office during their swearing-in last October.

It comes as fears grow that Beijing is increasingly interfering in semi-autonomous Hong Kong, sparking calls by some activists for self-determination or even independence for the city which have angered China.

“What’s happening today would never happen in a democratic society,” said one of the four targeted lawmakers, Leung Kwok-hung, known as “Long Hair”, as he entered Hong Kong’s High Court.

Two pro-independence lawmakers have already been banned from office by the High Court after they inserted expletives and draped themselves with “Hong Kong is not China” flags during the swearing-in.

That decision followed a special “interpretation” of the city’s constitution by Beijing that effectively prevented them from taking up their seats because of the way they took their oaths.

The four legislators in court Wednesday are not staunchly pro-independence but two of them have advocated self-determination for Hong Kong.

All four altered their oaths during the swearing-in, which requires lawmakers to repeatedly describe Hong Kong as a “special administrative region of China”.

Unlike the pro-independence activists, they were allowed to take up their seats. But the government is now seeking to remove them retrospectively.

Prosecutor Johnny Mok questioned whether their oaths met requirements, including “solemnity and sincerity”.

Mok said lawmaker Nathan Law, who led massive pro-democracy rallies in 2014 and is the city’s youngest ever legislator, made an “invalid” oath.

Law quoted Gandhi before making the pledge, saying: “You will never imprison my mind”, and used intonation to make his oath sound like a question.

Legislator and former protest leader Lau Siu-lai read her pledge at a snail’s pace, which Mok said “cannot be said to be sincere”.

Veteran anti-China lawmaker Leung raised a yellow umbrella – a symbol of the democracy movement – during his pledge, which Mok said he turned into a “theatrical performance”.

The fourth defendant, Edward Yiu, added lines to his oath, saying he would “fight for general universal suffrage”, which Mok described as a conscious decision to alter the pledge.

Hong Kong is governed under a semi-autonomous “one country, two systems” deal after being handed back to China by Britain in 1997.

The framework is supposed to safeguard the city’s freedoms and way of life.

But there are growing concerns that its liberties are disappearing in a range of areas, from politics to media and education, as Beijing tightens its grip.