ALMATY, Kazakstan -- The phone calls started last May, after the body of an ethnic Uighur activist was found strangled and dumped in a water reservoir.
Kakharman Kozhamberdi -- himself the head of an association representing the Muslim Uighur minority from western China -- would hear a voice speaking Russian with a Chinese intonation.
"Stop all your political activity, or you'll pay with your head," the caller would say. "You're still alive now. But you want to live for a long time."