140 dead in China during Uighur protest
Uighurs are not happy with the way they are being treated... destroying mosques and in a muslim area and cultural genocide does not sit well with these people.
http://www.worldbulletin.net/news_detail.php?id=44443
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China said 140 people on Sunday killed in a protest in East Turkistan's capital.
Monday, 06 July 2009 09:56
China said 140 people on Sunday killed in a protest in East Turkistan's capital and and the government signalled a security crackdown, seeing the ethnic protest "a plot against its control".
The protest broke out Sunday afternoon in a large market area of Urumqi, the capital, and lasted for several hours before riot police officers and paramilitary or military troops locked down the Uighur quarter of the city, according to witnesses and photographs of the riot.
The death toll from the protest has risen to 140, the semi-official China News Agency quoted Li Zhi, the Communist Party Boss of Urumqi City, as telling a news conference on Monday morning.
A separate report from the official Xinhua news agency had said the unrest injured 816, according to regional police authorities. That report had put the dead at 129.
The government put the number of people on the streets on Sunday at 300 to 500 while other sources had it as high as 3,000.
Chinese police have arrested "several hundred" who participated in the protest, Xinhua said.
The incident followed a protest in Urumqi -- a city of 2.3 million residents-- against government handling of a late June clash between Han Chinese and Uighur factory workers in far southern China, where two Uighurs died in Shaoguan.
On Monday morning "the situation was under control", Xinhua said. There were no immediate reports of protest in other parts of East Turkistan.
But, China's government has blamed Uighur exiles for "inciting a riot" in the Muslim region.
"After the (Shaoguan) incident, the three forces abroad strived to beat this up and seized it as an opportunity to attack us, inciting street protests," Nuer Baikeli, governor of Xinjiang, said in a speech shown on Xinjiang television.
Officials ordered traffic off the streets in parts of Urumqi to ensure there was no fresh unrest, Xinhua added.
"The city is basically under martial law," Yang Jin, a dried fruit merchant in Urumqi, said by telephone.
"It would be wrong for anyone to say he wasn't afraid, but the situation looks calm for now."
"Blame"
An unnamed Chinese official blamedthe protest on the World Uyghur (also spelt Uighur) Congress led by Rebiya Kadeer", according to Xinhua.
Rebiya Kadeer is a Uighur businesswoman now in exile in the United States after years in jail, and accused of pro-freedom activities. She did not answer calls for comment.
But exiled Uighur groups adamantly rejected the Chinese government claim of a plot. They said the riot was an outpouring of pent-up anger over government policies and Han Chinese dominance of economic opportunities.
"They're blaming us as a way to distract the Uighurs' attention from the discrimination and oppression that sparked this protest," said Dilxat Raxit, a spokesman for the World Uyghur Congress in exile in Sweden.
"It began as a peaceful assembly. There were thousands of people shouting to stop ethnic discrimination ... They are tired of suffering in silence."
The government's claims of conspiracy by pro-independence exiles echo the handling of rioting across Tibetan areas in March last year, which Beijing also called a plot hatched abroad.
East Turkistan is the doorway to China's trade and energy ties with central Asia, and is itself rich in gas, minerals and farm produce. But many Uighurs say they see little of that wealth.
"The government is applying its ready-made template that all ethnic tension is caused by external plots," said Nicholas Bequelin, a China researcher for Human Rights Watch, a New York-based group, who has long studied East Turkistan.
China calls it "the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region."
"This incident could further polarise ethnic groups in Xinjiang ... The official reaction is going to be pretty much what we saw in Tibet -- more repression, tighter control."
Chinese state television showed rioters throwing rocks at police and overturning a police car, and smoke billowing from burning vehicles.
Alim Seytoff, of the Uyghur American Association in Washington D.C., emailed pictures showing hundreds of locals confronting police in Urumqi, armoured riot-control vehicles patrolling streets, wounded and bloodied civilians lying on streets, and ranks of anti-riot police with shields and clubs.
Almost half of Xinjiang's 20 million people are Uighurs. The population of Urumqi is mostly Han Chinese, and the city is under tight police security even in normal times.
East Turkistan, occupied by the communist China in 1949, is home to about eight million Uighurs, ethnic Turks, and its name was changed in 1955.
Human rights groups accuse Beijing of using claims of "terrorism" as an excuse to crack down on peaceful pro-independence sentiment and expressions of Uighur identity.
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