China to further stem Xinjiang-related illegal publications

BEIJING - China's publication monitors will further crack down on illegal religious books and CDs related to the terrorist-hit Xinjiang following a number of busts.

The move is part of a campaign to safeguard social stability and long-term peace in the region. The campaign was started less than a month after 39 people were killed in a bomb explosion at a market in Urumqi, capital of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

"Anti-illegal publications departments across the country will make more efforts to cooperate with police, press and publication authorities in uncovering problems in the market and investigating clues offered by the public," said a statement released from the National Anti-Pornography and Anti-Illegal Publications Office on Thursday.

The statement included examples of 11 busts that occurred in 2013 and 2014 in Xinjiang and its neighboring Gansu Province.

The most high-profile case saw Xinjiang police confiscate more than 47,000 illegal books when raiding a storage room in the city of Hotan this March. Further investigations revealed that these publications were printed in south China's Guangdong Province with e-versions of foreign religious books downloaded from the Internet to use as blueprints. They were then transferred to Xinjiang for sale.

In the latest development, two people have been indicted for roles in these acts, which involved over 60,000 illegal books transferred from the southern cities of Guangzhou and Shenzhen to various places in Xinjiang since December 2013, the statement said. They were valued at 1.2 million yuan (195,000 U.S. dollars).

The office vowed to focus on destroying the sources for illegal publication and hand down severe punishment to individuals and groups involved.