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Category: China

Armed Mobs Throng Urumqi

2009-07-07

Witnesses say thousands of armed Han Chinese are on the streets of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region’s capital vowing revenge after a deadly clash.

AFP

Han Chinese march with sticks and shovels on a street in Urumqi, July 7, 2009.

UPDATED JULY 7, 1730 GMT

HONG KONG—An angry crowd of several thousand ethnic majority Han Chinese has gathered in Urumqi following weekend riots, amid a welter of rumors surrounding deadly clashes between Muslim Uyghurs and police, according to initial reports from foreign journalists and exiled Uyghur groups overseas.

“Chinese civilians, using clubs, bars, knives, and machetes, are killing the Uyghurs,” the Munich-based World Uyghur Congress said in a statement.

“They are storming the university dormitories, Uyghur residential homes, workplaces, and organizations,” it said, accusing the mob of killing unprotected Uyghur civilians.

Foreign correspondents on the ground in Urumqi said they saw armed crowds of thousands of Han Chinese running through the capital of the northwestern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR).

“Two police officers just escorted a Uyghur woman with a baby through a Han crowd with clubs by the People’s theater,” Time correspondent Austin Ramzy wrote via the real-time micro-blogging platform Twitter.

Telegraph correspondent Peter Foster reported via Twitter from Urumqi that thousands of armed Han Chinese had gathered near a mosque in Shanxi Alley in downtown Urumqi.

Police tried to calm the crowd, which was armed with “snooker cues, axes, machetes, baseball bats, metal scaffolding poles, cattle prods, and a plastic mop handle,” according to Foster’s updates.

Meanwhile, Al-Jazeera correspondent Melissa K. Chan tweeted, also from Urumqi, “A Han Chinese man with a stick just tore open our car door to beat our producer. Averted just in time.”

Chan said Urumqi was now under martial law. Official media also reported further unrest. Two separate estimates by foreign journalists at the scene put the crowd at around 10,000.

Despite Chinese officials’ decision to cut off the Internet and mobile phones, pictures, videos and updates from Urumqi poured into social-networking and image-sharing websites including Twitter, YouTube, and Flickr.

A Han Chinese employee at a youth hostel in downtown Urumqi said, “We have a curfew now and troops are everywhere.”

“We can still can drive on the streets—but I don’t know if the situation will get worse so I stored some bottles of water and instant noodles,” the employee said.

“More Han Chinese live in Urumqi than Uyghurs now,” he said. “Many Uyghurs are afraid to go out now. They have their own friends, and we won’t try to be their friends.”

“Before it was them attacking us. Now it’s our turn to attack them,” another Han Chinese resident said.

But a municipal official downplayed the tensions.

“We are coming to work as usual. What do you mean, take to the streets? We will see what happens. Ask again later,” the official said.

“Of course there have always been ethnic separatists. They have existed for a long time. They are always looking for ways to make trouble. They will do it as soon as they spot an opportunity,” the official added.

Chaos and vigilantes

Police fired tear gas repeatedly at the protesters but they refused to disperse. Police were blocking them from getting through to an area of Urumqi populated by Uyghurs, who authorities have blamed for riots on Sunday that left 156 people dead and more than 1,000 injured.

China’s state-run Xinhua news agency reported similar scenes in other parts of Urumqi.

“Chaos was seen in a number of places in Urumqi on Tuesday afternoon,” the official Xinhua news agency reported.

Back in Urumqi, al-Jazeera’s Chan tweeted: “There is no right or wrong anymore. Just vigilantes, Han and [Uyghur]. Mostly men but some women and even children.”

“I asked a Han Chinese girl if she was scared. Yes. But this is to defend my country, she says with stick in hand.”

The World Uyghur Congress said it had received several reports of deaths at the hands of Han mobs in different locations in Xinjiang, which is home to a population of Turkic-speaking Uyghurs, many of whom oppose Beijing’s rule, and a growing influx of migrants from the rest of China.

Ethnic tensions have simmered for decades, with Uyghurs saying they are subject to racial discrimination and have scant access to the fruits of China’s breakneck economic growth of the past 30 years.

China has said some overseas Uyghur separatist groups are connected with international terrorism.

Foster reported via Shanghai-based Telegraph correspondent Malcolm Moore that some of the crowd were comparing exiled former Uyghur businesswoman Rebiya Kadeer to al-Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden.

The Congress statement said: “[A] Uyghur young man was mutilated on [Urumqi’s] Dongbeilu. A Uyghur woman who was carrying a baby in her arms was mutilated along with her infant baby on Huanghelu.”

Witnesses on the ground said the mood of the crowd was ugly, with a group of Han Chinese protesters attacking Telegraph correspondent Foster and his assistant, who were protected by police.

The Uyghur Congress said Chinese security forces were “not taking any action” against the attackers, and that it had received telephone threats from “ethnic Han Chinese” at its headquarters in Munich.

A Foreign Ministry spokesman said Tuesday that Sunday’s violence in the region was not a peaceful protest, but “evil killing, fire-setting, and looting.”

Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang told a regular news briefing: “Anybody calling the violence a peaceful protest is trying to turn black into white in an attempt to mislead the public.”

Urumqi Communist Party chief Li Zhi went to the scene, addressing the crowd and calling for calm. The crowd roared soon after, before rushing off in the other direction, witnesses said.

Earlier, Li had told reporters: “We immediately reinforced the emergency prevention and control measures after the riots started. Security was dispatched to the four main areas of unrest, and they swiftly took care of the matter in accordance with the law.”

Internet curbs, media strategy

Also Tuesday, Li confirmed at a news conference that authorities there had cut off Internet access in parts of Urumqi to stop the flow of information that it saw as a dangerous threat.

“We cut the Internet connection in some areas of Urumqi in order to quench the riot quickly and prevent violence from spreading to other places,” Li said.

The Paris-based media watchdog Reporters Without Borders accused authorities of wanting to see Urumqi “cut off from the rest of the world.”

“Once again, the Chinese government has chosen to cut communications in order to prevent the free flow of information. We firmly condemn this behavior,” the organization said in a statement.

Many phone lines have been disabled since the violence erupted, but others remain in working order.

Netizens inside China said the personal update service Twitter, which is frequently used to transmit keywords, news and photos around the Chinese Web at a speed that eludes China’s censors, was blocked.

“Twitter is blocked: In another act of net-nanny folly Twitter.com has been blocked on the Chinese mainland,” media analysis blog Danwei commented via the service Monday.

Other users said the service was still accessible using third-party applications elsewhere on the Web.

They said sensitive keywords such as “Xinjiang” were currently returning no search results on the Chinese Web, either.

“Why is it that the moment something happens, the first thing they think of is blocking it?” user Keso tweeted. “Surely the fact that they do this shows that there are skeletons in the closet?”

Authorities have meanwhile taken the unusual step of bringing foreign reporters to Urumqi to learn about the incident and setting up a media center in a city hotel.

This contrasts with Beijing’s virtual blackout on previous instances of unrest, such as the Tibetan uprising of early 2008, but is in keeping with its handling of media immediately after the May 2008 Sichuan earthquake.

But that initial openness ended amid allegations that corruption had resulted in shoddy construction of school buildings that collapsed in the quake.

Shenzhen-based media commentator Zhu Jianguo said official media reports seemed to be intensifying conflicts rather than soothing them.

“They are putting out information at a much faster speed than previously but their approach is exactly the same as it always has been,” Zhu said, suggesting the coverage was one-sided.

“Now the incident has erupted into racial conflict, and it’s not a simple racial conflict either. It’s all over the country—it’s a crucial point at which the government faces off against the people.”

Original reporting by RFA’s Uyghur, Mandarin, and Cantonese services. Written for the Web in English by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Sarah Jackson-Han.

https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/xinjiang-07072009054344.html

July 7, 2009
Ethnic Unrest Continues In East Turkestan

Ethnic Uyghur women grab at a riot policeman as they protest in Urumqi, Xinjiang province, on July 7.

July 07, 2009

There are reports of continued violence in China’s autonomous Xinjiang region, with police dispersing unruly crowds of the country’s predominant Han ethnic group and scattered clashes between Han Chinese and Uyghurs.

Han Chinese demonstrators smashed shops thought to be owned by minority Muslim Uyghurs in the regional capital, Urumqi, two days after ethnic unrest in the city that officials blamed on Uyghurs left more than 150 people dead. Police said more than 1,400 had been arrested.

Meanwhile, dozens of Uyghurs faced off against police to protest the arrest of relatives since the rioting began, and authorities imposed a nighttime curfew in the city to prevent further “chaos.”

Security forces have a heavy presence in the area in an apparent effort to prevent tit-for-tat attacks pitting Uyghurs, who represent about half of Xinjiang’s 16 million residents, against ethnic Han Chinese, who make up the overwhelming majority of the country’s 1.3 billion people.

Chinese officials blamed the July 5 riots on the Germany-based World Uyghur Congress (WUC) and other Uyghur separatists, a charge the WUC has dismissed as a knee-jerk response from Beijing.

In an interview with RFE/RL’s Uzbek Service on July 7, WUC President Rebiya Kadir rejected Chinese accusations that she or her organization was in any way involved.

“They say that I am to blame for these events, but I am in no way responsible for this,” said Kadir, who lives in exile in the United States.

“In fact, it is China’s government that caused this. China’s government for the past 60 years has suppressed not only Uyghurs but all Turkic nations such as Uzbeks, Kazakhs, and Kyrgyz. They put tens of thousands of them into prisons. But now the nation knows what democracy is, and it went out to protest.”

Kadir put the put the true number of dead so far, “according to our information,” at more than 400. But there was no way to confirm that figure.

She also said the authorities “arrested not 1,400 people, but many more than that.”

Kadir warned that public perceptions of Uyghurs as a “violent” minority are fed by the official line and that Han-Uyghur violence could escalate.

Fear Of More Bloodshed

Reports from Urumqi say police fired tear gas to try to restore order when hundreds of Han Chinese armed with metal bars, clubs, and machetes marched through Urumqi, smashing Uyghur-run shops.

Earlier in the day, at least 200 Uyghurs, mainly women, protested following news that more than 1,400 people were arrested in connection with the July 5 riots. Reuters quoted a man who had participated in that demonstration as claiming that police “took them all away and took them inside.” He said there were young children among the detained protesters.

Urumqi Communist Party Secretary Li Zhi defended the broad police crackdown, saying the authorities “are protecting the safety of the women and the children.”

He added, however, that “those who took part in the riots will be dealt with severely, if they were involved in disruption and violence they will be educated.”

Official media said police on July 6 dispersed a protest by around 200 Uyghurs in Xinjiang’s second-largest city, Kashgar. Checkpoints were reportedly set up at crossroads between the airport and downtown Kashgar.

Internet connections are still largely cut off in Xinjiang, according to reports.

Outside China, officials said Molotov cocktails were thrown on July 6 at a Chinese Consulate in Munich, slightly damaging the premises. Uyghur protesters briefly scuffled with police during a protest outside the Chinese Embassy in Ankara on July 7. The consular section of the Chinese Embassy in The Hague was closed to the public, a day after protesters hurled rocks at the mission.

Humanitarian Concerns

The fresh unrest is apparently linked to a June clash between Uyghurs and Han Chinese in the southern Guangdong Province that reportedly left two Uyghurs dead.

Uyghurs outside China say claims of a terrorist threat serve as an excuse for Chinese authorities to crack down on peaceful pro-independence sentiment and expressions of Uyghur identity. They blame police for sparking the initial violence on July 5.

Rupert Colville, spokesman for UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, told a news conference in Geneva that “the high commissioner is alarmed by the large number of casualties during [the July 5] rioting in Urumqi, as well as by continuing reports of high tension and unrest in the region.”

He urged “Uyghur and Han civic leaders, and the Chinese authorities at all levels, to exercise great restraint so as not to spark further violence and loss of life” and called for an independent probe into the tragic weekend events.

Human Rights Watch’s Asia advocacy director Sophie Richardson repeated calls for an investigation. She also stressed that “our concerns are once again that we’re going to see absolutely no attention paid to due process, arbitrary arrest, possible abuse and torture of detainees. These are very real concerns in China.”

written by Andy Heil and RFE/RL correspondent Antoine Blua from RFE/RL and agency reports

https://www.rferl.org/a/Ethnic_Unrest_Continues_In_Xinjiang/1771324.html

July 7, 2009
Uyghur problem for Obama and Medvedev

17:35 06/07/2009

MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Dmitry Kosyrev) – The ongoing ethnic riots in Urumqi, China, can threaten other countries, in particular the United States and Russia.

The growth of Uyghur terrorism can complicate Barack Obama’s anti-terrorism policy focused on Afghanistan and Pakistan and affect Russia’s policy in Central Asia.

Since life itself is forcing Russia and the U.S. to cooperate in Central Asia and Afghanistan, we can presume that President Dmitry Medvedev and President Barack Obama wish the Chinese authorities success in restoring order in Urumqi.

Riots broke out in Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur province in northwest China, on July 5. They were organized by Uyghurs and were foreseen to claim lives.

First, the reason for the riots was the killing of two Uyghurs, most likely by the police, in Shaoguan in southern China, on June 25 during demonstrations provoked by government handling of a conflict between Han Chinese and Uyghur factory workers.

Ten days later, several hundred Uyghurs, most of them peaceful people, held a demonstration in Urumqi. At the same time, their much less peaceful compatriots started burning and smashing vehicles and confronting security forces.

Second, I cannot imagine anyone setting fire to a shop with a lighter. You need at least a canister of gasoline to do that. It reminded me about the anti-Chinese riots in Lhasa, Tibet, in March 2008. In both cases, there were trained provocateurs inciting the public.

Another factor proving my point is the reported number of the dead, over 140 as of Monday. There are never so many dead during ordinary, spontaneous street unrest.

Like Tibetans, Uyghurs are an ethnic minority with a powerful foreign diaspora. The Uyghur diaspora is known for its terrorist groups, which have staged more than one terrorist attack in China’s main cities other than in Xinjiang.

The Chinese authorities may have pointed to the rioters’ links with these groups too soon, but they could logically presume such connection as all previous riots were proved to be connected to the diaspora.

There are many possible links apart from the U.S.-based World Uyghur Congress (WUC).

Until recently, one of such links could lead to Kyrgyzstan, which has a large Uyghur population. It is for that reason that in the 1990s China focused on a project that has since become known as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

People from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and other neighboring countries routinely go to Urumqi for their purchases, medical assistance, and recreation. Urumqi is a trade and business center of a booming economic zone, which incorporates all Central Asian people and their West Chinese colleagues.

For this reason, we need not worry that the terrorist groups made up of Chinese minorities will receive assistance from Central Asia. However, it transpired in the 1980s that Uyghur terrorists were connected with subversives in Afghanistan and Pakistan. So, theoretically, Uyghurs, who are Muslims, are one of the problems facing Obama and Medvedev.

Like many other similar organizations operating in the United States or any other country, Uyghurs are financed by American NGOs. This is an element of the U.S. policy that has failed, even though the new administration has not yet officially disavowed it.

Besides, leaving such organizations to their own devices could be dangerous, as proved by the example of Al Qaeda.

The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.

July 6, 2009
Uyghurs Abroad Blame China Policies For Unrest

An image released by the U.S.-based Uyghur American Association of the clashes in Urumqi on July 5.

July 06, 2009

Current and former Uyghur activists abroad have rejected Chinese officials’ accusations of involvement in weekend violence that has left 140 people dead and hundreds injured in Xinjiang province, a heavily Uyghur swath of western China where ethnic and social frustrations run high.

Chinese officials have blamed “separatists” in the Xinjiang autonomous region and Uyghur plotters abroad — including the World Uyghur Congress — for rioting that broke out on July 5 and quickly escalated before thousands of additional security troops were dispatched to get a handle on the unrest.

Uyghur exiles have rejected Chinese officials’ claims of a plot and said the unrest was caused by police opening fire on a peaceful protest. The exiles said the riot was an outpouring of anger over government policies and Han Chinese dominance of economic opportunities.

Police and other security forces continued their stepped-up presence on July 6, and reports suggested the streets were largely quiet.

In a telephone interview with RFE/RL’s Tatar-Bashkir Service from his home in Germany, the vice president of the World Uyghur Congress, Asgar Can, downplayed Chinese allegations of involvement by his group in the unrest.

“If any protest appears in East Turkistan [the Xinjiang region], the Chinese government always blames the World Uyghur Congress for allegedly arranging those protests,” Can said. “Instead of blaming us, the government should listen to the problems of Uyghurs in the region and give what our people demand from the government, and this kind of protest would never happen.”

Can accused Beijing of persecuting Uyghurs through suppression of their Turkic language as well as religion and speech, population-control measures, and nuclear tests in their historical homeland.

“This protest is just a response to the inhuman treatment of Uyghurs by the Chinese government,” Can said.

His group issued a statement condemning “China’s brutal crackdown of a peaceful protest in Urumchi.”

Major Minority

Uyghurs are thought to compose roughly half of the Xinjiang region’s population of around 16 million.

In a historical context Xinjiang (New Frontier) is widely regarded as a part of Central Asia and, specifically, a region known as Eastern Turkistan. It became a tense hot spot following the implosion of the Soviet Union and newfound independence for five Central Asian republics in 1991.

As a result, clashes between the most outspoken Uyghur proponents of independence and Chinese authorities have been a frequent occurrence over the past 15 years or so.

Speaking after the latest unrest, Rozimukhamet Abdulbakiev, a former Uyghur activist in neighboring Kygyzstan, suggested the woeful rights situation was to blame for the kind of deep resentment that might have sparked the bloodshed.

“When the Soviet Union collapsed and the Kyrgyz, Kazakh, Uzbek states became independent, the Uyghurs became especially eager [to pursue] their independence with a new strength — this is what we’re seeing today,” Abdulbakiev, a former head of NGO Ittipaq (Unity) in Kyrgyzstan, told RFE/RL’s Kyrgyz Service in Bishkek.

“If the Chinese government were democratic and if it carried out political reforms, then this kind of harsh resistance would disappear,” he added.

Abdulbakiev called the unrest “a political and social matter” with roots in Beijing’s treatment of a beleaguered minority.

“Even though China granted Xinjiang the status of an autonomous Uyghur region, there is no sign of autonomy there. There are no rights for Uyghurs there — nothing,” Abdulbakiev said. “The Chinese totalitarian regime has suppressed all freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of personality, freedom of conscience [for Uyghurs] — that is why, of course, people have risen against it.”

Xinjiang is a major corridor for Chinese trade and energy ties with Central Asia, and is itself rich in gas, minerals, and agricultural production.

Other International Reaction

The latest violence followed a June clash between Uyghurs and Han Chinese in the southern Guangdong province in June that reportedly left two Uyghurs dead.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon responded to the violence by saying differences must be resolved peacefully through dialogue. He also urged governments to protect the lives and safety of civilians, as well as freedoms of speech, assembly, and information.

Italy’s President Giorgio Napolitano brought up the question of human rights at a press conference with his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, in Rome. He said both sides agreed that “economic and social progress that is being achieved in China places new demands in terms of human rights.”

In London, a spokesman for Prime Minister Gordon Brown urged restraint from all sides.

written by Andy Heil and RFE/RL correspondent Antoine Blua with contributions from RFE/RL’s Kyrgyz and Tatar-Bashkir Services

https://www.rferl.org/a/Kyrgyz_Uyghur_Sees_Roots_Of_China_Unrest_In_Beijing_Policies/1770623.html

July 6, 2009
Urumqi Tense, Quiet after Violence

2009-07-05

China blames overseas Uyghurs for inciting rioting in the northwestern city, saying at least 140 people died in the violence.

Sent by a witness

On this picture sent to RFA by a witness, cordons of Chinese riot police face up to demonstrators on July 5, in Urumqi.

UPDATED JULY 5, 1722 GMT

HONG KONG—Chinese authorities in the northwestern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) said the capital Urumqi was calm under tight security following deadly weekend riots, with tensions still simmering below the surface, as the United Nations chief called for restraint and peaceful dialogue.

The clashes, which left at least 140 dead and hundreds injured, flared after an initially peaceful demonstration took to the city’s streets in protest at how the authorities handled recent violence between majority Han Chinese and Uyghur factory workers in the southern province of Guangdong, eyewitnesses said.

According to the official Chinese Xinhua news agency, 57 dead bodies were retrieved from Urumqi’s streets and lanes, while all the others were confirmed dead at hospitals.

Security forces were now manning checkpoints at strategic points throughout the city, and ethnic minority officers were being drafted from outlying regions to help interrogate detained suspects, police said.

XUAR police chief Liu Yaohua told reporters Monday that apart from the 140 confirmed dead, 828 people were injured in the deadly violence that erupted Sunday night, and that the death toll would “continue to climb.”

Liu said rioters burned 261 motor vehicles, including 190 buses, at least 10 taxis and two police cars, with vehicles still visibly aflame on the city streets early Monday.

Rioters destroyed 203 shops and 14 homes, and several hundred people had been detained, he added.

“Police have tightened security in downtown Urumqi streets and at key institutions such as power and natural gas companies and TV stations to prevent large-scale riots,” Xinhua quoted Liu as saying.

International concern

Armored police car in an unknown Urumqi street, on July 5.

In Geneva, United National Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called Monday for restraint, while Italian President Giorgio Napolitano raised the issue of human rights with Chinese President Hu Jintao and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s government voiced concern over the violence. In Washington, U.S. officials declined to comment.

“Wherever it is happening or has happened, the position of the United Nations and the secretary-general has been consistent and clear: that all the differences of opinion, whether domestic or international, must be resolved peacefully through dialogue,” Ban told a news conference.

“Governments concerned must also exercise extreme care and take necessary measures to protect the life and safety of the civilian population and their citizens and their properties, and protect freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom of information,” he added.

Fear of escalation

Uyghur witnesses said the protest began when as many as 1,000 Uyghurs gathered to demand a probe into the deadly fight in Guangdong late last month.

Before the demonstrators reached the People’s Square in central Urumqi, armed police were in position and moved to disperse them, one witness said.

Police “scattered them [the protesters],” he said. “They beat them. Beat them, including girls, very, very viciously,” he said. “The police were chasing them and captured many of them. They were beaten badly.”

‘Electroshock weapons’

“When the demonstrators reached the People’s Square, armed police suppressed them using electroshock weapons and so on,” he said, adding, “after that, other protests erupted in Uyghur areas of town.”

A shopowner in Urumqi who declined to give his name said he had had to close for business as police swarmed through the city.

“We closed our doors from last night. Armed police dispersed the protesters in about two hours. Firefighters were also dispatched and last night police were all over the city,” he said in an interview Monday.

“Riots took place in bus stations, in tourist spots, and in shopping areas. Scores of Uyghurs were killed. Armed police were carrying automatic assault rifles and machine guns. There were thousands of soldiers. It had a tremendous impact, and we won’t be able to go to work for three days,” another resident said, also speaking on condition on anonymity.

A young Uyghur man is being taken away by two helmeted Chinese policemen in an Urumqi street, on July 5.

“When the protest started… I was near the Bank of China in Nanmen. There were many people. Police surrounded the areas from Döngköwrük to Nanmen,” one youth said Sunday. “There were police, paramilitary. They were fully armored, and they had steel helmets, too.”

“One was giving a speech in front of the bank and people were applauding him… Most of them were students,” he said.

“Police circled around them, and we couldn’t get inside.”

Another youth said the protest began peacefully but became violent after police fired on the crowd, and protesters then attacked cars and shops. His account couldn’t be independently confirmed.

City ‘now calm’

A police officer contacted by telephone early Monday said a curfew had been imposed on Uyghur areas.

“People are dead. This might have planned by evil-minded people,” the officer said.

Urumqi is home to 2.3 million residents, including many Uyghurs, who have chafed for years under Chinese rule. The city is located 3,270 kms (2,050 miles) west of Beijing.

Uyghur sources said the protest was organized online and began early July 5 with about 1,000 people but grew by thousands more during the day.

Online messages meanwhile called on Uyghurs in other major cities to stage protests Monday to show support for the Uyghurs who died in Shaoguan.

“We decided to hold a demonstration and stressed that it shouldn’t be violent,” an organizer of Sunday’s demonstration said in an interview.

Security in Urumqi is always tight, including strict controls over information. Witnesses spoke Sunday on condition of anonymity.

Exiles blamed

In a televised speech on Monday, XUAR Governor Nur Bekri explicitly blamed the clashes on Rebiya Kadeer, a former businesswoman who was jailed by Chinese authorities for subversion before she was paroled and admitted to the United States.

Kadeer now serves as leader of the Washington-based Uyghur American Association and Munich-based World Uyghur Congress, and she has been accused repeatedly of fomenting separatism among Uyghurs against the Chinese authorities.

“This riot is typical, directed from overseas but carried out inside [China], organized and premeditated,” Nur Bekri said. “On July 5, Rebiya made a phone call to China to incite the riot and by 7 p.m. protests erupted in Urumqi, and in some locations there was violence.”

Smoke rise above Urumqi from a location near South Gate (Nan Min) on July 5, as demonstrators clashed with police.

Both Kadeer and a spokesman for the World Uyghur Congress, Dilshat Rashit, have rejected the charge.

The Uyghur American Association, in a statement late Sunday, cited reports that 1,000 to 3,000 protesters marched through the Döngköwrük [Erdaoqiao] area of Urumqi on Sunday, “some of whom were waving the flag of the People’s Republic of China.”

Chinese authorities deployed regular police, anti-riot police, special police, and the People’s Armed Police to contain them, it said, citing unnamed witnesses as saying that an unknown number of Uyghur protesters died after police fired on them.

Kadeer said the violence “could have been avoided if the Chinese authorities had properly investigated the Shaoguan killings.”

In separate interviews, three Uyghur youths now under Chinese government protection said the fighting in Shaoguan began when Han Chinese laborers stormed the dormitories of Uyghur colleagues, beating them with clubs, bars, and machetes.

The clashes began late June 25 and lasted into the early hours of the following day. At least two people were killed and 118 injured, and witnesses said the numbers could be higher.

Underlying resentment

Screen shot from a message board in Uyghur showing a message in an image, calling for a demonstration in Kashgar, in front of the mosque, on July 6.

Like Tibet, which erupted in protests in early 2008, the XUAR has long been home to smoldering ethnic tensions related to religion, culture, and regional economic development that residents say has disproportionately enriched and employed majority Han Chinese immigrants.

China has accused Uyghur separatists of fomenting unrest in the region, particularly in the run-up to and during the Olympics last year, when a wave of violence hit the vast desert region.

The violence prompted a crackdown in which the government says 1,295 people were detained for state security crimes, along with tighter curbs on the practice of Islam.

XUAR Party Chief Wang Lequan was quoted in China’s official media as saying the fight against these forces was a “life or death struggle,” and he has spoken since of the need to “strike hard” against ethnic separatism.

Activists have reported wide-scale detentions, arrests, new curbs on religious practices, travel restrictions, and stepped-up controls over free expression.

Original reporting by Mamatjan Juma, Shohret Hoshur, and Mehriban for RFA’s Uyghur service and by Qiao Long fro RFA’s Mandarin service. Translated from the Uyghur by Mamatjan Juma and from the Mandarin by Jia Yuan. Uyghur service director: Dolkun Kamberi. Mandarin service director: Jennifer Chou. Written and produced in English by Sarah Jackson-Han. Edited by Luisetta Mudie.

https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/riots-07052009153209.html

July 6, 2009
Uighurs need media attention

Dear friends,

According to a resident, internet has been disconnected through out Xinjiang, a sign that the Chinese gov. has and will murder many more innocent Uighurs. They have confiscated phones, cell phones, computers and any other form of communication devices for they do not want the world to hear the protesters’s cries for help. It is now our job to communicate the message that these brave Uighurs are sacrificing their lives to communicate to the rest of the World. We need as much media attention as we can get, please contact your local media and give them information about he protest and let them know that this was a peaceful protest that is violently suppressed by the Chinese gov. Email them, call them, mail them, send them photos, links, youtube videos, please be presistant remind them that the people are dying by the second and we can not afford to waste any time. It may be hard to divert media attention from the ever so important Michael Jackson’s death, but please be persuasive, try to evoke their compassion if they have any, with videos and photos of this horrific event!!!!!!

Thank you and God bless!

July 6, 2009