Tag: Uighurs

  • Chinese Authorities Blame Internet for Fanning Uighur Anger

    Chinese Authorities Blame Internet for Fanning Uighur Anger

    Chinese authorities blame foreign activists for inciting violent protests this week in Xinjiang, and say the Internet enabled them to do it. Uighur groups have used the Internet to rapidly get out images from what they say was a provocative government crackdown on a peaceful demonstration.

    a4Following Sunday’s violence in Xinjiang region, Chinese authorities were hasty to point fingers.

    At a news conference Monday, Xinjiang’s police chief Liu Yaohua blamed the World Uighur Congress, an international Uighur rights group.

    Liu accused the organization of distorting China’s ethnic and religious policy to stir up conflict. But he especially singled out the Internet, describing it as the main medium that foreign forces use to communicate with Uighurs in China.

    Uighur activists say a peaceful demonstration Sunday in Xinjiang’s capital, Urumqi, turned violent after police began cracking down. Chinese authorities accuse groups like the World Uighur Congress of masterminding a riot from afar, in an effort ultimately aimed at creating an independent Xinjiang.

    Twitter disabled


    The government has acted quickly to block access to information. Authorities acknowledge that Internet service in Urumqi has been interrupted, but they do not say how long it will be out. They say the interruption was done legally, and is necessary to maintain social stability.
    In Beijing, the Twitter messaging system, which protesters in Iran recently used to report on police crackdowns there, has been disabled. And while cell phone connections in the Xinjiang capital, Urumqi, still operate, getting a call to the city, or making an international call from there, is proving difficult.

    Xiao Qiang teaches journalism at the University of California at Berkeley. He also edits China Digital Times, a round-up of Chinese-language content on the Internet.
    Internet is playing a bigger role this year,” Xiao noted. “Partially because what happened in Urumqi was immediately exposed by lots of cell-phone cameras, digital cameras, videos – there’s a lot of witness(es), people [who] immediately wrote and sent out video images on the Internet.”

    Internet gains importance

    Xiao compares what happened in Urumqi to the events last year in the capital of Tibet, Lhasa, when scores of Tibetans clashed with security forces there. He says Internet use in Urumqi is much more than in Lhasa.

    He says Chinese authorities immediately began removing all Internet references to the Urumqi protest, and blocking social networking sites.

    There are ways of getting around Web restrictions. Xiao says Chinese Internet users have been engaging in a tactic called “tomb digging.” Users on a bulletin board forum post an up-to-date response to an older post that mentions Xinjiang and has not yet been deleted.

    “It’s basically a covered-up way to discuss those banned issues, under the nose of the editors of those forums, and it could be very effective,” Xiao said.

    What caused violence?

    Xiao says the opinions on Internet forums are much more varied than those in official Chinese media. Some support the government and the use of force to crack down on chaos. But other users are mistrustful of the government’s handling of the situation and are more reflective about the cause of the violence.

    The Uighurs are a mostly Muslim ethnic group with cultural and linguistic ties to Central Asia. For years, many have complained that country’s ethnic majority, the Han, are taking over their traditional home, Xinjiang, in western China, and that they face government discrimination.

    University of Washington Chinese studies Professor David Bachman says the images of the crackdown he has seen show the use of force has been “extensive” and “in some ways merciless.” Despite the government’s criticism of the Internet, the wide dissemination of pictures like those also helps spread Beijing’s stern warning.

    “Clearly, the Chinese government is saying to Uighurs and to others in Xinjiang and to Tibetans and other minority groups, or for domestic protesters in the heart of China, that protests will be met with strict and harsh measures. Don’t even think about it,” Bachman said.

    Possible solution

    Bachman says cracking down – on both a restive minority and on public access to information – may solve short-term problems, but will only breed more resentment and opposition in the long run.

    He says there is no quick fix to the long-standing tensions between Han Chinese and Uighurs. He says any efforts to make the problem better, though, should first focus on deeper issues, such as trying to alleviate perceived imbalances, discrimination and inequality.

    Voa News

  • The Real Uighur Story

    The Real Uighur Story

    Chinese propaganda obscures what sparked Sunday’s riots.

    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

  • China’s Latest Tibet

    China’s Latest Tibet

    Why Beijing won’t compromise in Xinjiang.

    BY JOHN LEE | JULY 6, 2009

    After scolding the West for interfering in the internal affairs of Iran, Beijing’s public relations department will now be on the defensive following riots in Urumqi, the capital of the westernmost region of Xinjiang. Chinese state media has admitted that 140 people have been killed and almost 1,000 arrested. Hundreds had taken to the streets to protest the local government’s handling of a clash between Han Chinese and Uighur factory workers in far southern China in late June, in which two Uighurs died. The police responded to the rallies with force, claiming that the unrest was the work of extremist forces abroad and that a heavy reaction was necessary to bring the situation under control.

    Given the region’s population of 20 million — barely 1.5 percent of the country’s people — many are wondering: Why has Beijing taken such a hard line in Xinjiang? The reason is summed up in one of the ruling party’s favorite mantras: “stability of state.” Unrest of even a small magnitude, the Chinese authorities believe, can spell big consequences if it spirals out of control.

    Instability of the sort in Xinjiang today is hardly new for China. Behind Shanghai’s glamour and the magnificence of Beijing, there are large swaths of disunity and disorder. Taiwan, which mainland China still claims as its own, remains recalcitrant and effectively autonomous. Residents of Hong Kong want guarantees that Beijing will not dismantle the rights they enjoyed under British colonial rule. And traditional Tibetans, who fear a complete political and religious takeover by the ethnically Han majority, want cultural and administrative autonomy — even if most have abandoned hopes of achieving outright secession. Many of the 10 million Uighurs in Xinjiang want the same. The current violence is just the latest manifestation of their simmering anger.

    There is widespread disorder even in provinces that pose no challenge to Beijing’s right to rule. In 2005, for example, there were 87,000 officially recorded instances of unrest (defined as those involving 15 or more people) — up from just a few thousand incidents a decade ago. Most protests are overwhelmingly spontaneous rather than political; they arise out of frustration among the 1 billion or so “have-nots” who deal with illegal taxes, land grabs, corrupt officials, and so on. To deal with the strife, Beijing has built up a People’s Armed Police of some 800,000 and written several Ph.D.-length manuals to counsel officials on how to manage protests. Those documents detail options to deal with protest leaders: namely the tactical use of permissiveness and repression, and compromise and coercion, on a case-by-case basis. The tactics are designed to take the fuel out of the fire. Sometimes leaders of protests are taken away; other times they are paid off; still other times they are given what they want.

    Much of this is done quietly, which is perhaps why the current riots stand out. When it comes to what Beijing sees as separatist behavior, subtlety is no longer an option. Although their populations are relatively small, Xinjiang and Tibet together constitute one third of the Chinese land mass, and Beijing will not tolerate losing control over these territories. To be sure, the protesters in Urumqi and their supporters cannot spark an uprising throughout China. The protests will eventually be quelled, and their leaders will no doubt be dealt with brutally. But as the history of the Chinese Communist Party tells us, when the regime’s moral and political legitimacy is threatened, the leadership almost always chooses to take a hard, uncompromising line.

    President Hu Jintao, who incidentally earned early brownie points within the party by leading a crackdown of political dissidents in Tibet in 1989, understands better than anyone that authoritarian regimes appear weak at their own peril. Losing face, he believes, will only embolden the “enemies of the state.” The Communist Party’s Leading Group on Foreign Affairs, which is chaired by Hu, has often spoken warily about the democratic “viruses” behind the “color revolutions” in Ukraine and Georgia, and perhaps eventually Iran — the same kind that could conceivably take root in places such as Xinjiang and Tibet. This is why Chinese authorities are deeply suspicious of any group with loyalties that might transcend the state and regime or at least cannot be easily controlled by the state, such as the Falun Gong, Catholics, or independent trade unions.

    It’s important to remember that, at home, the government’s hard line is not wholly unpopular. Most Chinese do not support the separatist agendas of Tibet, Xinjiang, or Taiwan. They would rather see a strong and unified China restored to historic glory. No wonder then that the Chinese state media has been quite upfront about reporting on the current unrest in Urumqi.

    Chinese leaders learned much about control in their extensive studies of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Their conclusion is clear: It was Mikhail Gorbachev’s ill-fated attempts to be reasonable that brought down that empire. The current generation of Chinese leaders is determined not to make the same mistake. And that means no compromise in Xianjiang.

  • Sources in Urumqi? They’re (very) hard to come by.

    Sources in Urumqi? They’re (very) hard to come by.

    Given political sensitivities and a Stalinist grip on the region’s population, no one – from Uighurs on the street to Beijing intellectuals – appears willing to talk.

    By Peter Ford | Staff writer 07.06.09

    BEIJING –Trying to work out what on earth happened Sunday night in Urumqi, where the government says that at least 140 people died in a riot, is proving about as hard as getting an interview with President Hu Jintao.

    The key question is: Who died? Muslim Uighur demonstrators, cut down by the police, as Uighur exile groups claim? Or innocent Han Chinese bystanders, butchered by a mob of Uighurs, as the government-owned media are making out?

    Getting any Uighurs in Urumqi to talk on Monday was impossible. Their Internet access had been cut off, most of their phones, too, and those whom foreign journalists reached were too terrified of the government to say anything.

    Xinjiang, an allegedly autonomous region, is the hardest place I have ever worked. The atmosphere of repression is Stalinist. For a week last year I tried to gauge ordinary people’s feelings there about the authorities. Not one person I spoke to would give his real name, and most whom I approached wanted nothing to do with me.

    They knew I was being watched by the Chinese secret police, and they knew they would get into trouble for talking to a foreign reporter. Frankly, I did not call any Uighurs anywhere in China on Monday, for fear of the repercussions they would face for even getting a call from me.

    But what was really astonishing was the reluctance of Chinese scholars to say anything about why they thought the riot had broken out. Perhaps because they did not want to diverge from the party line, perhaps because they did not yet know what the party line was, none of the local Xinjiang experts whom I called Monday would talk to me.

    One simply hung up when I announced who I was. Another – a scholar of China’s border territories – said that he was working only on Tibet, not on Xinjiang. (When I called him last March to talk about Tibet, he told me that he had nothing to say because he was working only on Xinjiang….)

    A third, his wife said, had been unexpectedly detained at a conference out of town and was mysteriously unreachable on his cellphone.

    So, faced with a sensitive political issue, defenseless Uighur men-in-the-street and well-placed Beijing intellectuals all found themselves in the same boat: voiceless.

  • Armed Mobs Throng Urumqi

    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.

    Armed Mobs 305

    AFP

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

    UPDATED JULY 7, 1730 GMT

    HONG KONGAn 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

  • Ethnic Unrest Continues In East Turkestan

    Ethnic Unrest Continues In East Turkestan

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    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