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China police fan out to halt Xinjiang unrest
By Chris Buckley Chris Buckley – 38 mins ago
URUMQI, China (Reuters) – Banks of paramilitary police fanned out in the far-flung Chinese city of Urumqi on Wednesday to try to stifle unrest days after 156 people were killed in the region's worst ethnic violence in decades.
Urumqi, capital of the northwestern region of Xinjiang, imposed an overnight curfew on Tuesday after thousands of Han Chinese, armed with sticks, knives and metal bars, stormed through its streets demanding redress and sometimes extracting bloody vengeance on Muslim Uighurs for Sunday's violence.
Many took to the streets again on Wednesday and even with helicopters hovering overhead there were scuffles in a volatile crowd of around 1,000 as police seized apparent ringleaders, prompting cries of "release them, release them."
President Hu Jintao abandoned plans to attend a G8 summit in Italy, returning home to monitor developments in energy-rich Xinjiang, where 1,080 people were also wounded in rioting and 1,434 have been arrested since Sunday.
Financial markets again appeared unaffected and life was returning to the streets of Uighur neighborhoods. But residents said night-time arrests were continuing and they were quietly preparing to defend against further Han attacks.
Urumqi airport was crowded with people anxious to leave, the official Xinhua news agency said. "We fear Xinjiang is not safe any more," said one passenger who refused to be identified.
Their fear was borne out downtown. In one street, two young boys were surrounded by an angry mob, with dozens trying to pull them down and grabbing at their hair. At one point they briefly turned on a journalist.
Volatile and swelling Han crowds protested against security forces seizing young Han men.
"Why are you catching Han Chinese? They are only trying to protect us," said one woman in the crowd, bickering with police.
But the heavy security presence brought peace to central parts of the city, with armed personnel carriers standing by as helicopters hovered overhead.
Rumours swirled. A group of Uighur men said they were convinced two locals died in Tuesday's confrontations and that there were many more deaths across the city.
A man in his 50s, who gave name as Mohammed Ali, said he had heard from neighbors and friends that two men had died and two had been seriously wounded.
"Now we are scared to go anywhere," he said. "Doing even simple things becomes frightening."
"BLOOD FOR BLOOD INCOMPATIBLE WITH RULE OF LAW"
Police say Sunday's clashes were triggered by a brawl between Uighurs and Han at a factory in south China prompted by a rumor Uighurs had raped two women. Police have detained 15 people in connection with the factory brawl, including two suspected of spreading rumours on the Internet.
"If a wrong is avenged with another wrong, there would be no end to it," the state-owned English-language China Daily said in an editorial.
"Blood for blood is incompatible with the rule of law and will only lead to a vicious cycle of harm and revenge."
Internet access in the city was blocked on Wednesday except in the business center of one hotel for foreign reporters.
Along with Tibet, Xinjiang is one of the most politically sensitive regions in China. It is strategically located at the borders of Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, has abundant oil reserves and is China's largest natural gas-producing region.
Xinjiang has long been a tightly controlled hotbed of ethnic tensions, fostered by an economic gap between many Uighurs and Han Chinese, government controls on religion and culture and an influx of Han migrants who now are the majority in most key cities, including Urumqi. There were attacks in the region before and during last year's Summer Olympics in Beijing.
But controlling the anger on both sides of the ethnic divide will now make controlling Xinjiang, with its gas reserves and trade and energy ties to central Asia, all the more testing for the ruling Communist Party.
Russia put its support firmly behind China, saying the violence was a purely internal affair.
Groups of Han gathered around reporters in Urumqi to talk about how angry they were and dragged away a Uighur woman who also approached. It was not clear what happened to her.
"We want these terrorists punished. Our hearts are still filled with anger," said one of the Han Chinese men.
Li Yufang, a Han who owns a clothes store, said he was outraged by what had happened over the weekend and wanted to protest again, although he admitted it was unlikely amid the heavy presence of troops.
"Uighurs are spoiled like pandas. When they steal, rob, rape or kill, they can get away with it. If we Han did the same thing, we'd be executed," he said.
The government has blamed Sunday's killings on exiled Uighurs seeking independence for their homeland, especially Rebiya Kadeer, a businesswoman and activist now living in exile in the United States.
Kadeer, writing in the Asian Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, condemned the violence on both sides and again denied being the cause of the unrest.
Uighurs, a Turkic people who are largely Muslim and share linguistic and cultural bonds with Central Asia, make up almost half of Xinjiang's 20 million people.
The population of Urumqi, which lies around 3,300 km (2,000 miles) west of Beijing, is mostly Han.
(Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in Shanghai and Benjamin Kang Lim in Beijing; Writing by Nick Macfie; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)
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China vows executions for rioters behind killings
URUMQI, China – The Communist Party boss of Urumqi says the government will seek the death penalty for anyone found to be behind the deaths of 156 people killed in riots in the capital of Xinjiang.
Li Zhi told a news conference Wednesday that Urumqi was stable after several days of ethnic violence. He said security forces had control of the streets.
He said many people accused of murder had already been detained and that most of them were students.
The violence has already caused President Hu Jintao to cut short a visit to take part in the Group of Eight summit in Italy to return to take charge of the situation.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
URUMQI, China (AP) — China flooded the capital of western Xinjiang province with security forces Wednesday, and President Hu Jintao cut short a visit to the G8 summit as Beijing tries to stem a tide of ethnic clashes in the wake of a riot that left 156 dead.
Helicopters dropped leaflets appealing for calm among Urumqi's 2.3 million residents, although the official Xinhua News Agency said there were "sporadic standoffs" between protesters and security forces, and some minor clashes. It did not give details.
Hu arrived home Wednesday "due to the situation" in Xinjiang, Xinhua said. It did not say what action he would take.
In some areas of the city, residents formed alleyway barricades with furniture and debris to stop a repeat of the fighting between minority Uighurs (pronounced WEE-gers) and Han Chinese — the country's majority ethnic group.
"The government told us today not to get involved in any kind of violence. They've been broadcasting this on the radio, and they even drove through neighborhoods with speakers telling people not to carry weapons," said one Han Chinese man who would give only his surname, Wang.
Hundreds of paramilitary police guarded the main roads to Uighur neighborhoods and the central square in Urumqi (pronounced uh-ROOM-chee), where the first riots began. Most were armed with shields and clubs, while a few had assault rifles fixed with bayonets.
It was not known if any new arrests were made. The government has already said more than 1,000 had been detained.
The notes dropped by helicopter carried an appeal for calm from Xinjiang's Communist Party secretary. "Secretary Wang urges everybody to return home, return to their work units and return to their communities," read the title in bold Chinese characters.
Crowds reacted warily. "We don't believe this. They need to tell the Han to retreat. We're going to stay here to protect our homes," said a Uighur businessman, who would give only part of his name, Mamet.
Shortly afterward, policemen — some Han, some Uighur and armed with handguns and automatic rifles — came through the neighborhood to enforce calm.
"We are just protecting our homes. We are not planning a counterattack," said one of a group of 10 Uighur men guarding the entrance to a side street. After talking with the police, the men turned and walked inside nearby shops and buildings.
Uighurs say the riots that started Sunday — put down by volleys of tear gas and a massive show of force — were triggered by the June 25 deaths of Uighur factory workers during a brawl in the southern Chinese city of Shaoguan. State-run media have said two workers died, but many Uighurs believe more were killed and said the incident was an example of how little the government cared about them.
Many of the Turkic-speaking group believe the Han Chinese, who have flooded into the rugged, rapidly developing western region in recent years, are trying to crowd them out. The Han Chinese say the Uighurs are backward and ungrateful for all the economic development and modernization.
They also say the Uighurs' religion — a moderate form of Sunni Islam — keeps them from blending into Chinese society, which is officially communist and largely secular.
The authorities have been trying to control the unrest by blocking the Internet, including social networking sites such as Facebook, and limiting access to texting services on cell phones. At the same time, police have generally been allowing foreign media to cover the tensions.
On Wednesday, workers in Internet cafes in two other Xinjiang cities, Turpan and Kashgar, said Internet connections had been cut.
"The police came to us and told us to shut down our Internet cafe for the next three days, but who knows how long this will last," said the manger of the Huo Zhou Internet cafe in Turpan. He would give only his surname, Pei.
An operator with China Mobile's service center in Xinjiang, who refused to give her name, said all the services for cell phones, except making and receiving calls, had been suspended, including sending and receiving text messages — one of the major ways Twitter messages are distributed.
She said many calls were not going through because the system was overloaded.
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Tensions high after deadly unrest in China
AFP
(3 hours ago) Today
Thirteen of the people killed were civilians while the other eight were alleged attackers. - AFP (File Photo)
KASHGAR, China: Tensions ran high in China’s remote Kashgar city Tuesday after authorities shot dead two men suspected of fomenting deadly ethnic unrest and vowed a further crackdown on “religious extremists”.
Police killed the men, both from the mainly Muslim Uighur minority that makes up around half the population of China’s northwestern Xinjiang region, late Monday as they were trying to capture the pair, Kashgar authorities said.
The deaths bring to 21 the number of people reported killed in Kashgar, a famed city on the ancient Silk Road in Xinjiang, since the weekend in the latest bout of unrest stemming from Uighur frustration at Chinese rule.
Thirteen of the people killed were civilians while the other eight were alleged attackers, some of whom were trained in “terrorist” camps in neighbouring Pakistan, according to Chinese authorities.
Xinjiang’s government pledged to “firmly punish violent terrorists” and “crack down on religious extremists” in the wake of the attacks, which came just weeks after deadly clashes in Hotan, another city in the vast region.
On Tuesday, there was a heavy police presence on the streets of Kashgar, with some shops and businesses remaining closed, and few Han Chinese in evidence.
Many of Xinjiang’s roughly nine million Turkic-speaking Uighurs are unhappy with what they say has been decades of political and religious repression, and the unwanted immigration of the Han, China’s dominant ethnic group.
“Look at the Han and the Uighurs — who is rich and who is poor?” said one Uighur man aged in his 20s, whose name AFP withheld due to the sensitivity of the issue.
“Some Uighurs go to university in Urumqi (Xinjiang’s capital), they graduate, come back and can’t find jobs. These all go to the Han. And even when they do find jobs, their salaries is low.”
The tension has triggered sporadic bouts of unrest in the resource-rich and strategically vital region that borders eight countries, including Afghanistan and Pakistan.
In July 2009, China was hit by its worst ethnic violence in decades when Uighurs savagely attacked Han Chinese in Urumqi — an incident that led to deadly reprisals by Han on Uighurs several days later.
The official Xinhua news agency named the two men killed late Monday as 29-year-old Memtieli Tiliwaldi and Turson Hasan 34, and said they were shot dead in corn fields outside the city.
Police earlier issued warrants for the two and a reward of 100,000 yuan (about 15,000 dollars) for information leading to their arrests.
They were accused of involvement in an attack Sunday in which six civilians were killed when a restaurant was set ablaze, apparently after explosives were thrown towards it.
Kashgar authorities said Monday that the heads of the group behind the attack had learned explosive-and firearm-making skills in camps run by the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) in Pakistan.
Chinese authorities have accused the ETIM, which wants an independent homeland for Xinjiang’s Uighurs, of orchestrating attacks in the region on many occasions.
The United States and the United Nations have listed the group as a “terrorist” organisation, and China has previously said it has operations in Pakistan as well as Afghanistan.
Chinese state-run media has devoted little space to the attacks, and the words “Kashgar” and “terrorist attacks” appeared to be blocked on China’s Twitter-like social networking sites.
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ラビア カーディル said: "I am saddened that Han Chinese and Uighurs have lost their lives. At the same time I cannot blame the Uighurs who carry out such attacks for they have been pushed to despair by Chinese policies. "I condemn the Chinese government for the incident. The Chinese government has created an environment of hopelessness that means it must take responsibility for civilian deaths and injuries caused by their discriminatory policies,"
bbc Tuesday, August 2, 2011 10:51:00 AM CEST
Нур Бекри said: "We will harshly attack any atrocities that threaten people's lives, defile the dignity of the law, and threaten supreme national interests,"
reuters Tuesday, August 2, 2011 5:45:00 AM CEST
Нур Бекри said: "We will harshly attack any atrocities that threaten people's lives, defile the dignity of the law, and threaten supreme national interests,"
trust Tuesday, August 2, 2011 5:32:00 AM CEST
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