Tag: East Turkestan

Urumqi: a Quiet “Open Prison”

2009-07-10

A man contacted by RFA in Urumqi tells about his fears while the official Chinese media strive to portray a city under control and life back to normal.

RFA

Chinese People’s Armed Police in front of the Grand Bazaar in Urumqi, on July 9.

Official Chinese media are describing the city of Urumqi as “quiet” following several days of ethnic violence between Muslim Uyghurs and the majority Han Chinese.

“Major streets in Urumqi seemed peaceful Friday,” said the official Xinhua news agency.

“Life back to normal in Urumqi,” said a caption over a Xinhua picture showing residents buying vegetables in a market.

But Uyghurs, who say their grievances are routinely ignored and suppressed as “separatism” by Beijing, describe the atmosphere as anything but normal.

One man in Urumqi, reached by telephone by RFA, said that for its Uyghur minority, Urumqi was “an open prison.”

Xinhua did acknowledge that “security remained tight” and that “some mosques were shut on Friday “for security reasons.”

By RFA’s count, only two mosques were open in Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) with a population of 2.3 million people.

White mosque opened

On Friday, Uyghur men demanded that they be admitted to the White Mosque near the neighborhood where some of the worst violence occurred following Uyghur protests, a police crackdown, and ethnic clashes that left at least 184 dead, according to an official Xinhua report.

A New China News agency (Xinhua) picture showing “Urumqi residents buying vegetables at a market,” as proof that normalcy has returned to the regional capital on July 10.

The police decided to open the mosque, apparently in order to avoid yet another clash.

According to the Associated Press, a group of 10 policemen blocked a small demonstration not far from the White Mosque.

About 40 Uyghur men and women “began to march, shouting, crying and pumping their fists in the air as they walked.”

“The Uyghur people are afraid,” said Madina Ahtam, a woman in a multicolored headscarf, who spoke English. “Do you understand? We are afraid. … The problem? Police.”

Police “pushed journalists away from the area and detained at least four foreign journalists, holding them for several hours.”

Death toll

China on Saturday issued its latest casualty figures – 137 ethnic Han Chinese and 46 Uyghurs. A man of Hui nationality was also reported to have been killed.

Many Uyghurs believe that this understates the Uyghur death toll.

In an interview on Friday with AP Television, Rebiya Kadeer, the exiled Uyghur leader, said that China’s casualty toll for the unrest has greatly understated the number of Uyghur killed.

The man contacted by RFA said that Uyghurs were currently unable to move freely around the city.

The man’s name is not disclosed in order to protect him from retaliation.

“We cannot go out freely,” he said. “Whenever they see some Uyghur people gathering up, they are forcing them to go inside.”

“Fully armed police are marching around in the street, in front of our doors. Just below my house, there are police officers, and they can break in and take me away at any time.”

This man seemed to express a kind desperation displayed by many in the city.

“The heart of the Uyghur people in our land is broken,” he said. “We can only ask God for help. No one is here to protect us.”

Foreign reactions

Overseas, The Organization of the Islamic (OIC) condemned the “disproportionate” use of force in Xinjiang, according to Agence France-Presse.

The OIC called on China to carry out an “honest” investigation into the clashes and find those responsible for the killings.

Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told reporters that the issue should be taken to the United Nations’ Security Council.

The head of Indonesia’s largest Muslim political party, the Prosperous Justice Party, called for the U.N. and Western countries to put pressure on China to stop the “slaughter” of Uyghurs and Han Chinese.

Original reporting in Uyghur by Erkin. Uyghur service director: Dolkun Kamber. Written for the Web by Dan Southerland.

https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/eyewitness-07102009094007.html

July 11, 2009
Exiled Leader Blames China

2009-07-09

A prominent exile Uyghur leader says China prompted violent ethnic clashes in the country’s northwest.

RFA

Rebiya Kadeer speaks at the National Press Club in Washington, July 6, 2009.

WASHINGTON—China’s government is stirring up ethnic tensions that have led to Chinese violence against the mostly Muslim Uyghur ethnic minority in the country’s northwest, according to Uyghur activist Rebiya Kadeer.

The leader of the Washington-based Uyghur American Association and Munich-based World Uyghur Congress said the people of China aren’t to blame for the recent wave of violence in Urumqi because they were being led astray by a “tyrannical” government.

“I blame the [Chinese] government as a source of cruelty,” Kadeer said in an interview.

Large numbers of majority Han Chinese are reported to have attacked Uyghurs with sticks, metal clubs, and machetes in the capital of China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, Urumqi.

“The tragic incident that took place yesterday in Urumqi is a brutal and inhumane [form of] violence which was committed by some Chinese people and instigated by the Chinese government,” she said.

Kadeer said the official media were stirring up anger in the Chinese community against Uyghurs by showing images only of Han Chinese injured in the July 5 riots that left at least 156 dead and more than 1,000 injured.

Those riots were touched off by a clash between Uyghur and Han Chinese factory workers in China’s southern province of Guangdong in late June. Uyghurs in Urumqi held what Kadeer called a “peaceful” demonstration in protest of Chinese authorities’ mishandling of that incident, leading to a standoff with armed police.

Counter-charges

“The inability to deal properly with a…peaceful demonstration—causing civilian death—is the responsibility of the government,” Kadeer said.

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

Chinese authorities have accused her repeatedly of fomenting separatism among Uyghurs.

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

“One should look at how the incident occurred. When Uyghurs took to the streets in peaceful protest, they didn’t have weapons in their hands. Instead they held the Chinese flag. The Uyghurs didn’t say they would kill or beat people. They demanded justice from the authorities,” Kadeer said.

“The Chinese authorities didn’t give the chance for a peaceful end to a peacefully started demonstration…The Chinese authorities are accountable for these atrocities.”

Original reporting by RFA’s Uyghur service. Uyghur service director: Dolkun Kamberi. Translated by Shohret Hoshur. Written for the Web in English by Joshua Lipes. Edited by Sarah Jackson-Han.

https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/exiledleader-07092009175907.html

July 11, 2009
Uighurs dispute China’s breakdown of riot dead

By WILLIAM FOREMAN and GILLIAN WONG, Associated Press Writers William Foreman And Gillian Wong, Associated Press Writers – 30 mins ago

URUMQI, China – China released a breakdown Saturday of the death toll from communal rioting, saying most of the 184 killed were from the Han Chinese majority — an announcement that only fueled suspicion among Muslim Uighurs that many more of their people died.

Identifying the ethnic background of the dead for the first time since last Sunday’s unrest in western Xinjiang, the government’s Xinhua News Agency cited provincial officials as saying 137 victims were Han while 46 were Uighurs and one was a Hui, another Muslim group.

Uighurs on the streets of the Xinjiang capital, Urumqi, and from exile activist groups disputed the new figures, citing persistent rumors that security forces fired on Uighurs during Sunday’s protest and in following days.

“I’ve heard that more than 100 Uighurs have died, but nobody wants to talk about it in public,” said one Uighur man who did not want to give his name because the city remains tense and security forces are everywhere.

Dispelling such suspicions has become another challenge for the government as it tries to calm the troubled region and win over critics in the international community. Turkey — whose people share an ethnic and cultural bond with the Uighurs — has been particularly critical with the prime minister likening the situation to genocide.

Uighurs (pronounced WEE-gers) have repeatedly told foreign journalists in Urumqi that police shot at crowds. The accounts have been difficult to verify, except in isolated cases, making it unlikely that Uighur deaths numbered 500 or more as some exile activists have claimed. Security forces have shown discipline in dealing with agitated and angry crowds of Uighurs and Han in the days following the riot.

Nearly a week after last Sunday’s disturbance, officials have yet to make public key details about the riots and what happened next. How much force police used to re-impose order is unclear. Xinhua’s brief report, which raised the death toll by nearly 30, did not say whether all were killed Sunday or afterward when vigilante mobs ran through the city with bricks, clubs and cleavers.

China’s communist leadership has ordered forces across Xinjiang to mobilize to put down any unrest, adding a note of official worry that violence might spread elsewhere. The state-run China News Service said that authorities last Monday arrested an unspecified number of people plotting to instigate a riot in Yining, a city near Xinjiang’s border with Kazakstan.

In a separate report, the news agency said that some of the rioters in Urumqi (pronounced uh-ROOM-chee) came from Kashgar, Hotan and other cities in the region, which abuts Pakistan, Afghanistan and other parts of Central Asia.

In Urumqi, some Chinese held funeral rites for their dead Saturday. At a makeshift funeral parlor along an alley, friends paid respects at an altar with photos of the dead: a couple and her parents, all beaten to death in the riot.

Security forces patrolled the city in thick numbers. Paramilitary police carrying automatic weapons and riot shields blocked some roads leading to one largely Uighur district. White armored personnel carriers and open-bed trucks packed with standing troops rumbled along main avenues.

In one Uighur neighborhood, a police van blared public announcements in the Uighur language urging residents to oppose activist Rebiya Kadeer, a 62-year-old Uighur businesswoman who lives in exile in the U.S., whom China says instigated the riots without providing evidence. She has denied it.

Kadeer, president of the pro-independence World Uyghur Congress, and other overseas activists say that many more Uighurs have accused authorities of downplaying the toll to cover up killings by Chinese security forces. “We believe the actual number of people dead, wounded and arrested is much higher,” she said in an interview Friday in Washington.

Kadeer has said at least 500 people were killed while other overseas groups have put the toll even higher, citing accounts from Uighurs in China.

China has said its security forces exercised restraint in restoring stability but has not provided details nor explained why so many people died.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey — where daily protests have voiced support for the Uighurs — urged Beijing to prevent attacks on the minority group.

“These incidents in China are as if they are genocide,” said Erdogan. “We ask the Chinese government not to remain a spectator to these incidents. There is clearly a savagery here.”

The violence last Sunday followed a protest against the June 26 deaths of Uighur factory workers in a brawl in southern China. The crowd then scattered throughout Urumqi, attacking Han Chinese, burning cars and smashing windows.

Many Uighurs who are still free live in fear of being arrested for any act of dissent.

Thousands of Chinese troops have flooded into Urumqi to separate the feuding ethnic groups, and a senior Communist Party official vowed to execute those guilty of murder in the rioting.

A report in the Urumqi Evening News on Friday said police caught 190 suspects in four raids the day before.

The government believes the Uighurs should be grateful for Xinjiang’s rapid economic development, which has brought new schools, highways, airports, railways, natural gas fields and oil wells in the sprawling, rugged Central Asian region, three times the size of Texas.

But many of the Turkic-speaking Uighurs, with a population of 9 million in Xinjiang, accuse the dominant Han ethnic group of discriminating against them and saving all the best jobs for themselves. Many also say the Communist Party is repressive and tries to snuff out their Islamic faith, language and culture.

AP – A mother holds on to her child as she cries for her husband who was killed during riots in Urumqi, China, …

July 11, 2009
Turkish PM to raise Uighur mass killing in G8 summit

[ 09 Jul 2009 18:25 ]
Baku – APA. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan will raise the issue of bloody events in Xinjiang-Uighur autonomous region of China in the G8 summit in L’Aquila, Italy.

On his departure for the G8 summit, Erdogan told journalists that he will raise the issue of mass killing of Uighurs to the G8 leaders, including the US, APA reports quoting Haberturk. “Our foreign ministry invited the Chinese ambassador and gave a notice to him. We demanded to end this wildness soon. I will discuss this issue with the world leaders. It is impossible for Turkey to keep silence toward this wildness”.

Erdogan said Turkey was ready to give a visa to the leader of World Uighur Congress Rebia Kadeer, who lives in exile in the United States, if she asks them for it. Chinese communist regime accused Kadeer in the masterminding of unrests and said she instigated the Uighurs in China.

July 9, 2009
The Real Uighur Story

Chinese propaganda obscures what sparked Sunday’s riots.

By REBIYA KADEER

When the Chinese government, with the comfort of hindsight, looks back on its handling of the unrest in Urumqi and East Turkestan this week, it will most likely tell the world with great satisfaction that it acted in the interests of maintaining stability. What officials in Beijing and Urumqi will most likely forget to tell the world is the reason why thousands of Uighurs risked everything to speak out against injustice, and the fact that hundreds of Uighurs are now dead for exercising their right to protest.

On Sunday, students organized a protest in the Döng Körük (Erdaoqiao) area of Urumqi. They wished to express discontent with the Chinese authorities’ inaction on the mob killing and beating of Uighurs at a toy factory in Shaoguan in China’s southern Guangdong province and to express sympathy with the families of those killed and injured. What started as a peaceful assembly of Uighurs turned violent as some elements of the crowd reacted to heavy-handed policing. I unequivocally condemn the use of violence by Uighurs during the demonstration as much as I do China’s use of excessive force against protestors.

While the incident in Shaoguan upset Uighurs, it was the Chinese government’s inaction over the racially motivated killings that compelled Uighurs to show their dissatisfaction on the streets of Urumqi. Wang Lequan, the Party Secretary of the “Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region” has blamed me for the unrest; however, years of Chinese repression of Uighurs topped by a confirmation that Chinese officials have no interest in observing the rule of law when Uighurs are concerned is the cause of the current Uighur discontent.

China’s heavy-handed reaction to Sunday’s protest will only reinforce these views. Uighur sources within East Turkestan say that 400 Uighurs in Urumqi have died as a result of police shootings and beatings. There is no accurate figure for the number of injured. A curfew has been imposed, telephone lines are down and the city remains tense. Uighurs have contacted me to report that the Chinese authorities are in the process of conducting a house-to-house search of Uighur homes and are arresting male Uighurs. They say that Uighurs are afraid to walk the streets in the capital of their homeland.

The unrest is spreading. The cities of Kashgar, Yarkand, Aksu, Khotan and Karamay may have also seen unrest, though it’s hard to tell, given China’s state-run propanganda. Kashgar has been the worst effected of these cities and unconfirmed reports state that over 100 Uighurs have been killed there. Troops have entered Kashgar, and sources in the city say that two Chinese soldiers have been posted to each Uighur house.

The nature of recent Uighur repression has taken on a racial tone. The Chinese government is well-known for encouraging a nationalistic streak among Han Chinese as it seeks to replace the bankrupt communist ideology it used to promote. This nationalism was clearly in evidence as the Han Chinese mob attacked Uighur workers in Shaoguan, and it seems that the Chinese government is now content to let some of its citizens carry out its repression of Uighurs on its behalf.

This encouragement of a reactionary nationalism among Han Chinese makes the path forward very difficult. The World Uighur Congress that I head, much like the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan movement, advocates for the peaceful establishment of self-determination with genuine respect for human rights and democracy. To achieve this objective, there needs to be a path for Han Chinese and Uighur to achieve a dialogue based on trust, mutual respect and equality. Under present Chinese government policies encouraging unchecked nationalism, this is not possible.

To rectify the deteriorating situation in East Turkestan, the Chinese government must first properly investigate the Shaoguan killings and bring those responsible for the killing of Uighurs to justice. An independent and open inquiry into the Urumqi unrest also needs to be conducted so that Han Chinese and Uighurs can understand the reasons for Sunday’s events and seek ways to establish the mutual understanding so conspicuously absent in the current climate.

The United States has a key role to play in this process. Given the Chinese government’s track record of egregious human-rights abuses against Uighurs, it seems unlikely Beijing will drop its rhetoric and invite Uighurs to discuss concerns. The U.S. has always spoken out on behalf of the oppressed; this is why they have been the leaders in presenting the Uighur case to the Chinese government. The U.S., at this critical juncture in the East Turkestan issue, must unequivocally show its concern by first condemning the violence in Urumqi, and second, by establishing a consulate in Urumqi to not only act as a beacon of freedom in an environment of fierce repression but also to monitor the daily human-rights abuses perpetrated against the Uighurs.

As I write this piece, reports are reaching our office in Washington that on Monday, 4,000 Han Chinese took to the streets in Urumqi seeking revenge by carrying out acts of violence against Uighurs. On Tuesday, more Han Chinese took to the streets. As the violence escalates, so does the pain I feel for the loss of all innocent lives. I fear the Chinese government will not experience this pain as it reports on its version of events in Urumqi, and it is this lack of self-examination that further divides Han Chinese and Uighurs.

Ms. Kadeer is the president of the Uighur American Association and World Uighur Congress.

The Wall Street Journal

July 7, 2009