By HOWARD W. FRENCH
Published: April 2, 2008
SHANGHAI — Chinese officials said Wednesday that they were grappling with ethnic unrest on a second front, in the northwestern region of Xinjiang, where Uighur Muslims protested Chinese rule late last month even as Tibetans rioted in the southwest.
One Uighur demonstration, which appears to have been quickly suppressed, took place in the town of Khotan on March 23, at the same time China was deploying thousands of security forces across a broad swath of its southwest to put down Tibetan unrest.
Officials said the protest was staged by Islamic separatist groups seeking to foment a broader uprising in Xinjiang. China often blames any ethnic disturbances on what it calls splittists and terrorists. Human rights groups say that Chinese Uighurs, like Tibetans, have fought for greater freedom to practice their religion as well as more autonomy from Beijing.
The news of the protest in Xinjiang underscored the breadth of China’s problems with ethnic and religious minority groups in the country’s vast western regions, where there is a long history of unhappiness with Chinese rule. Ethnic groups Beijing has sought to pacify with economic development programs and suppress with heavy police presence appear to be using the upcoming Olympic Games, to be held in Beijing, as an opportunity to press their grievances and attract international attention to their causes.
“A small number of elements tried to incite splittism, create disturbances in the market place and even trick the masses into an uprising,” a statement published on the Web site of the Khotan government said in the first official acknowledgment of the disturbances.
Uighur residents of Khotan reached by telephone either claimed not to understand Chinese or refused to talk about recent events there. But Han residents said that as many as 500 Uighurs protested in the center of the city. Some reports have said the Uighurs, who are Muslim, were objecting to restrictions on wearing Islamic scarves and head coverings. Some interviewees, however, said the protesters were seeking independence. The demonstrators were quickly arrested by security forces who took control of the area.
Zhu Linxiu, a senior police official in Khotan, declined to comment in detail about the incident, saying it was “inappropriate to publicize.” He refused to confirm the number of protesters or arrests, but said the demonstrators were “instigated by bad elements.”
Two weeks before the reported protest in Khotan, China announced the discovery of what it called a terrorist plot in Xinjiang, which it said involved the smuggling of combustible liquids onto a commercial airliner by a Uighur woman who had spent time in neighboring Pakistan.
Officials called the incident part of a terrorist campaign by a radical Islamic independence group, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement. Uighur groups have denied the reports, and called them part of an effort to justify heavily stepped-up security in the region and the suppression of dissent before the Olympics.
In recent days, Beijing has also accused supporters of the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, of plotting a suicide bombing campaign against China, as part of a separatist campaign.
On Tuesday, Amnesty International criticized the government for its crackdown on protest in Tibetan areas of China, and said the country’s efforts to silence dissidents before the Olympics violated Beijing’s pledges to improve human rights before it hosts the games in August. “The Olympic Games have so far failed to act as a catalyst for reform,” the international human rights groups said in a statement. “Unless urgent steps are taken to redress the situation, a positive human rights legacy for the Beijing Olympics looks increasingly beyond reach.”
A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Jiang Yu, denounced the Amnesty statement as “biased,” saying “anyone planning to use the Olympics to threaten China, or planning to put pressure on China, has miscalculated.”
Like Tibetans in Tibet, Uighurs have historically been the predominant ethnic group in Xinjiang, which is officially known as the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. In both Tibet and Xinjiang, indigenous groups have chafed at the arrival of large numbers Han Chinese, the country’s predominant ethnic groups, who have migrated to western regions with strong government support.
Uighurs, like Tibetans, have complained that recent Han arrivals now dominate their local economies, even as the Han-run local governments insert themselves deeper into schools and religious practices to weed out cultural practices that officials fear might reinforce a separate ethnic or religious identity. In telephone interviews, Han residents of Khotan and nearby areas said there was a long history of distrust and tension between Han and Uighur communities. Some Han migrants insisted the atmosphere remained volatile, and said that the Uighurs had been inspired by the recent Tibetan unrest.
“Some of jobless people here have heard about the situation Tibet, and they also want to make trouble,” said Wang Guoliang, a Han grocery store owner in Khotan. “They want independence and they want to expel the Han, whom they dislike. Most of the main cadres in the Party, from counties and the cities to the provincial level are all Hans, while the local level officials are Uighur.” Mr. Wang called the purging of Uighur officials several years ago after a previous bout of tension “the root of the protest.”
Another Han, a clerk in a local bank who would only give his name as Chen, said there had been a long history of discontent in the region, and that people had been “on the lookout” since mid-March. At his bank, Mr. Chen said there had been grumblings over the restrictions on Muslim headgear, which he disagreed with, saying: “It is their national custom and we should respect it.”
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Uyghurs Protest in China's Remote Xinjiang Region
ISTANBUL, April 1—Several hundred ethnic Uyghurs have staged protests in China’s remote and restive Xinjiang region following the death in custody of a prominent Uyghur businessman and philanthropist.
Witnesses report protests at two locations in Khotan prefecture—in Khotan city March 23-24 and Qaraqash county March 23, RFA’s Uyghur service reports. Several hundred protesters were taken into custody, numerous sources said, and security remains tight.
Numerous sources said the demonstrations followed the death in custody of a wealthy Uyghur jade trader and philanthropist, Mutallip Hajim, 38. Police returned his body to relatives March 3 after two months in custody, saying he had died in hospital of heart trouble. According to an authoritative source, police instructed the family to bury him immediately and inform no one of his death.
The unrest comes two weeks after ethnic Tibetans in neighboring provinces staged riots against Chinese rule, prompting a deadly crackdown and countless arrests. Both Tibetans and Uyghurs—two of China’s major religious and ethnic minorities—have chafed under Beijing’s rule for the last six decades, and Chinese authorities have faced persistent accusations of repression and abuse. But while exiled Uyghur leaders have voiced support for the Tibetan protesters, the Uyghur unrest appears unrelated.
Protesters’ demands
In both areas, the protesters were demanding that authorities scrap a bid to ban head scarves, stop using torture to suppress Uyghur demands for greater autonomy, and release all political prisoners, sources said.
In Khotan, the crowd of several hundred protesters comprised mainly women. Hotel employees said police produced lists of alleged protesters, mainly women, and told them to report to police if anyone using tried to register as a guest under any of those names, they said.
The protesters, who according to several accounts numbered around 600, began their march at the Lop bus station. An unknown number of men joined their 2-km (one- mile) march to the Big Bazaar shopping area, where they were surrounded by police who arrested around 400, the sources said. How long they were held was unclear.
The sources, who declined to be identified, reported six casualties, although no details were available. Police in Khotan city and its Chinbagh district, contacted by telephone, denied any protests had taken place.
Police say protest ‘peacefully dispersed’
In Qaraqash, a police officer on duty said protesters there “peacefully dispersed.”
“There were no injuries or deaths, and we persuaded the people gathered for the protest to leave,” the officer said. He told a reporter to phone back later for an accurate crowd count but hung up when the reporter rang back after 15 minutes.
Two additional sources in Khotan said they knew nothing of protests but had witnessed extraordinary security measures there, including an order for all local residents to remain in their homes.
One local worker told RFA’s Mandarin service that police were quick to quash what she described as riots in Khotan. “There was an immediate crackdown. Now everything is stable,” she said. “Protesters were arrested although I don’t know how many were. Now travel is back to normal.”
A local restaurant employee said: “Indeed there were some riots, but now it’s calm and the restaurant is open. Some rioters were arrested but I don’t know how many were arrested. The restaurant was closed for a few days while the riots were going on.”
But an employee at another restaurant had a different account. “The restaurant is still closed,” the employee said. “There’s no chef, and there aren’t any customers either.”
Tense area
Khotan, a rich oasis fed by a several rivers, is located on the southwestern edge of the historic Tarim Basin and about 2,000 kms (1,300 miles) from the regional capital, Urumqi.
Uyghurs, who number more than 16 million, constitute a distinct, Turkic-speaking, Muslim minority in northwestern China and Central Asia. They declared a short-lived East Turkestan Republic in what is now Xinjiang in the late 1930s and 40s but have remained under Beijing’s control since 1949.
China has waged a campaign over the last decade against what it says are violent separatists and Islamic extremists who aim to establish an independent state in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, which shares a border with Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Mongolia.
In March 2008, Chinese authorities announced that they had foiled a plot by Uyghur terrorists targeting the Beijing Olympics. In the early 1990s, Uyghurs in Xinjiang launched large-scale riots, attacking and killing Chinese officials. Chinese authorities alleged that such acts killed 162 people and injured another 440, prompting a harsh crackdown.
After the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, Beijing took the position that Uyghur groups were connected with al-Qaeda and that one group, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), was a “major component of the terrorist network headed by Osama bin Laden.” The ETIM has denied that charge.
U.S.-based Human Rights Watch says authorities in Xinjiang maintain “a multi-tiered system of surveillance, control, and suppression of religious activity aimed at Xinjiang’s Uyghurs...At a more mundane and routine level, many Uyghurs experience harassment in their daily lives.”
“Celebrating religious holidays, studying religious texts, or showing one’s religion through personal appearance are strictly forbidden at state schools. The Chinese government has instituted controls over who can be a cleric, what version of the Koran may be used, where religious gatherings may be held, and what may be said on religious occasions.”
Original reporting from Istanbul, Washington, and Hong Kong by RFA’s Uyghur and Mandarin services. Translation by Omer Kanat and Jiayuan. Uyghur service director: Dolkun Kamberi. Mandarin service director: Jennifer Chou. Written and produced in English by Sarah Jackson-Han.
Witnesses report protests at two locations in Khotan prefecture—in Khotan city March 23-24 and Qaraqash county March 23, RFA’s Uyghur service reports. Several hundred protesters were taken into custody, numerous sources said, and security remains tight.
Numerous sources said the demonstrations followed the death in custody of a wealthy Uyghur jade trader and philanthropist, Mutallip Hajim, 38. Police returned his body to relatives March 3 after two months in custody, saying he had died in hospital of heart trouble. According to an authoritative source, police instructed the family to bury him immediately and inform no one of his death.
The unrest comes two weeks after ethnic Tibetans in neighboring provinces staged riots against Chinese rule, prompting a deadly crackdown and countless arrests. Both Tibetans and Uyghurs—two of China’s major religious and ethnic minorities—have chafed under Beijing’s rule for the last six decades, and Chinese authorities have faced persistent accusations of repression and abuse. But while exiled Uyghur leaders have voiced support for the Tibetan protesters, the Uyghur unrest appears unrelated.
Protesters’ demands
In both areas, the protesters were demanding that authorities scrap a bid to ban head scarves, stop using torture to suppress Uyghur demands for greater autonomy, and release all political prisoners, sources said.
In Khotan, the crowd of several hundred protesters comprised mainly women. Hotel employees said police produced lists of alleged protesters, mainly women, and told them to report to police if anyone using tried to register as a guest under any of those names, they said.
The protesters, who according to several accounts numbered around 600, began their march at the Lop bus station. An unknown number of men joined their 2-km (one- mile) march to the Big Bazaar shopping area, where they were surrounded by police who arrested around 400, the sources said. How long they were held was unclear.
The sources, who declined to be identified, reported six casualties, although no details were available. Police in Khotan city and its Chinbagh district, contacted by telephone, denied any protests had taken place.
Police say protest ‘peacefully dispersed’
In Qaraqash, a police officer on duty said protesters there “peacefully dispersed.”
“There were no injuries or deaths, and we persuaded the people gathered for the protest to leave,” the officer said. He told a reporter to phone back later for an accurate crowd count but hung up when the reporter rang back after 15 minutes.
Two additional sources in Khotan said they knew nothing of protests but had witnessed extraordinary security measures there, including an order for all local residents to remain in their homes.
One local worker told RFA’s Mandarin service that police were quick to quash what she described as riots in Khotan. “There was an immediate crackdown. Now everything is stable,” she said. “Protesters were arrested although I don’t know how many were. Now travel is back to normal.”
A local restaurant employee said: “Indeed there were some riots, but now it’s calm and the restaurant is open. Some rioters were arrested but I don’t know how many were arrested. The restaurant was closed for a few days while the riots were going on.”
But an employee at another restaurant had a different account. “The restaurant is still closed,” the employee said. “There’s no chef, and there aren’t any customers either.”
Tense area
Khotan, a rich oasis fed by a several rivers, is located on the southwestern edge of the historic Tarim Basin and about 2,000 kms (1,300 miles) from the regional capital, Urumqi.
Uyghurs, who number more than 16 million, constitute a distinct, Turkic-speaking, Muslim minority in northwestern China and Central Asia. They declared a short-lived East Turkestan Republic in what is now Xinjiang in the late 1930s and 40s but have remained under Beijing’s control since 1949.
China has waged a campaign over the last decade against what it says are violent separatists and Islamic extremists who aim to establish an independent state in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, which shares a border with Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Mongolia.
In March 2008, Chinese authorities announced that they had foiled a plot by Uyghur terrorists targeting the Beijing Olympics. In the early 1990s, Uyghurs in Xinjiang launched large-scale riots, attacking and killing Chinese officials. Chinese authorities alleged that such acts killed 162 people and injured another 440, prompting a harsh crackdown.
After the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, Beijing took the position that Uyghur groups were connected with al-Qaeda and that one group, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), was a “major component of the terrorist network headed by Osama bin Laden.” The ETIM has denied that charge.
U.S.-based Human Rights Watch says authorities in Xinjiang maintain “a multi-tiered system of surveillance, control, and suppression of religious activity aimed at Xinjiang’s Uyghurs...At a more mundane and routine level, many Uyghurs experience harassment in their daily lives.”
“Celebrating religious holidays, studying religious texts, or showing one’s religion through personal appearance are strictly forbidden at state schools. The Chinese government has instituted controls over who can be a cleric, what version of the Koran may be used, where religious gatherings may be held, and what may be said on religious occasions.”
Original reporting from Istanbul, Washington, and Hong Kong by RFA’s Uyghur and Mandarin services. Translation by Omer Kanat and Jiayuan. Uyghur service director: Dolkun Kamberi. Mandarin service director: Jennifer Chou. Written and produced in English by Sarah Jackson-Han.
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