Muslim Uighurs riot in China, 156 dead, 800 injured

This article from wikinews seems to give a balanced picture.  Link

Q&A: Troubles in Xinjiang

Amateur footage of toy factory riots

protests video footage

Uighur and Han describe deadly violence

Han seek revenge after Uighur rioting

If Only the Uighurs Were Buddhist and China Was Israel

Background The riot began Sunday in Ürümqi, the capital city of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, in northwestern China. It began as a protest encouraging authorities to look into a previous violent incident between Uighurs and Han Chinese in June. In the June incident, two Uighur men were reportedly beaten to death by a mob at a Guangdong province toy factory. A rumour spread that the men had sexually harassed Han Chinese women. According to Chinese state media, police have arrested a man who allegedly spread the rumour. The June clash has been cited as the instigating factor to the Sunday riot, which escalated.

China says at least 156 dead in Uighur riots

URUMQI, China (AFP) – China said Tuesday at least 156 people were killed when Muslim Uighurs rioted in the restive region of Xinjiang in some of the deadliest ethnic unrest to hit the country in decades.

The violence in the regional capital Urumqi on Sunday involved thousands of people and triggered an enormous security crackdown across Xinjiang, where Uighurs have long complained of repressive Chinese rule.

“People are staying inside, the best thing for you is to go back to your hotel, that will be safe,” a businessman told AFP near Urumqi’s bazaar district, the scene of much of the violence.

In a sign tensions were still running high, state media reported that police had dispersed more than 200 “rioters” on Monday evening as they gathered at the main mosque in Kashgar, a city in western Xinjiang on the ancient Silk Road.

Police believed people were “trying to organise more unrest” in other cities in the vast mountainous and desert region that borders Central Asia, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

Xinhua said more than 700 people had been arrested for involvement in Sunday’s riots, which authorities blamed on Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking people who have closer cultural links to regional neighbours than the Han Chinese.

Exiled Uighur groups accused Chinese security forces of over-reacting to peaceful protests and firing indiscriminately on crowds.

The deadly unrest drew attention around the world, with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon leading calls for restraint, a sentiment echoed by Britain and the United States.

“We are deeply concerned over reports of many deaths and injuries from violence in Urumqi in western China,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.

“We call on all in Xinjiang to exercise restraint,” Gibbs said in a statement.

Xinjiang communist party official Li Yi said early Tuesday the death toll had risen to 156 — 129 men and 27 women — and 1,080 injured, up from the previous figure of at least 140 dead and 828 injured, Xinhua reported.

“At present, the situation is still seriously complicated, Xinjiang will prevent the situation from spreading to other areas using the most powerful measures and methods, and will safeguard regional stability,” China News Service quoted Nur Bekri, chairman of the Xinjiang region, as saying earlier.

Dramatic footage broadcast of the unrest by the state-run CCTV network showed men turning over a police car and smashing its windows, a woman being kicked as she lay on the ground and buses and other vehicles aflame.

Han Chinese businesspeople told AFP there were around 3,000 Uighur protesters, a figure repeated by exiled Uighur groups.

“The Uighurs attacked motorists with rocks,” said one Han woman who saw the riot unfold from the 11th floor of a local hospital.

“They just attacked the Han people.”

The regional government blamed Rebiya Kadeer, the Uighurs’ leader living in exile in the United States, for orchestrating the unrest.

But Kadeer and other Uighur exiles blamed the Chinese authorities.

“They randomly fired on men and women,” Asgar Can, vice-president of the World Uighur Congress — the main international organisation representing the minority — told AFP in Berlin.

“In addition, the police pooled their vehicles together in certain parts of the city and then began to run demonstrators over,” Can said.

Alim Seytoff, general secretary of the Uighur American Association, told AFP in Washington the Uighurs were protesting over an ethnically charged brawl late last month at a factory in southern China that left two Uighurs dead.

Authorities in Urumqi deployed more than 20,000 police, troop and firefighters to quell the unrest, Xinhua said, quoting a police source.

Riot police and other security forces armed with machine guns and carrying shields were seen in Urumqi on Monday, preventing further protests, according to an AFP reporter here.

Truckloads of German Shepherd police dogs were also brought in and large swathes of the Muslim quarter of the city were sealed off, the reporter said.

Police said a curfew would be put in place from 8:00 pm local time.

Many of Xinjiang’s roughly eight million Uighurs say they suffer political, cultural and religious persecution. Like in Tibet, they also complain about Han Chinese moving into the area in large numbers.

The unrest echoed deadly violence in Buddhist Tibet in March last year when Tibetans stormed through the streets of the region’s capital, Lhasa, attacking Han Chinese in frustration at what they claimed was repressive Chinese rule.

China Executes 2 Islamic terrorists for deadly attack in Xinjiang which killed 17 people

China Executes 2 for Attack in Xinjiang

voanews.com, 09 April 2009

Chinese authorities say they executed two men on Thursday in the restive far-west region of Xinjiang for a deadly attack on border police four days before the Olympic Games last year.

Court officials announced the decision to execute Abdurahman Azat, 34, and Kurbanjan Hemit, 29, to an audience of about 4,000 local officials and residents at a stadium in Kashgar.

The execution was carried out later in private at a separate location.

The two men were members of China’s predominantly Muslim Uighur minority.

The attack was the worst of several before and during the Olympics that left dozens of people dead. China claims separatist militants from the northwest region intended use the heightened media attention on China to gain publicity for their cause.

The two men were sentenced to death in December for carrying out the August 4 attack in Kashgar and intending to “sabotage” the Olympics.

Seventeen people were killed and 15 wounded when the men drove a truck into a group of policemen and then attacked them with bombs and knives.

Some information for this report was provided by AFP and AP.

Major clash between Chinese Hui Muslims and ethnic Han

February 18, 2009
Children’s fireworks row in China results in major clash

CLIFFORD COONAN in Beijing

A DISPUTE between children from two villages quarrelling over fireworks escalated into a major clash between Chinese Hui Muslims and ethnic Han majority villagers in Hebei province a week ago, forcing 2,000 police to intervene to maintain order.

It’s the latest episode in a growing litany of local riots and unrest as the economy slows in China.

According to reports, fireworks set off by children from the Hui village of Niujinzhuang set fire to firewood in the neighbouring Han village, Gengzhuangzi, on the Lantern Festival, the end of the Lunar New Year holiday when fireworks are lit across the country. The children argued over the event on February 10th, but the row escalated into a massive brawl that drew thousands of villagers.

The Hong Kong Centre for Democracy and Human Rights reported that 2,000 armed police came in to stop the fighting, and said hundreds were injured, four seriously. Local police said three people were injured, one of them seriously. There are still 500 paramilitary officers patrolling the area to stop further conflicts.

There have been clashes before between Hui Muslims and Han Chinese in various parts of the country. There are about 10 million Hui Muslims in China, while there are about the same number of Turkish ethnic Uighur Muslims living in the west of the country. Han Chinese account for more than 90 per cent of the population.

Recent protests and riots in provincial towns have drawn thousands of locals into confrontations with police. Using mobile phones, the aggrieved can quickly co-ordinate with friends and family.

In 2004, a dispute over a traffic accident in neighbouring Henan province escalated when Han and Hui were trucked in to join in fighting. Seven people were killed before martial law was imposed.

In last year’s Tibetan anti-Chinese riots, Han and Hui villagers were targeted by rioting Tibetans.

The central government in Beijing is keeping a close eye on rising social unrest in the country as the economy slows and unemployment starts to rise, particularly among migrant workers who are forced to return to their countryside homes from the cities. Some 20 million of the country’s 130 million migrant workers have recently lost their jobs, although there is little sign of any organised protest in China and most unrest tends to flare up randomly in local areas, and is often focused against corrupt local officials.

How LTTE, Palestine, Kashmir, India lost by not seizing the moment

Seizing the moment
Business Standard / New Delhi January 04, 2009, 0:31 IST

The Israelis bomb Gaza out of shape, and the Sri Lankan army captures the Kilinochchi headquarters of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Tigers (LTTE). What could the Palestinians and Sri Lanka’s Tamilians be thinking? Whatever their thoughts are, it is fairly certain that they will not be blaming their leaders, past and present. And which of their leaders would want to remind them of what might have been?

The LTTE’s Prabhakaran could have accepted the terms of the Rajiv Gandhi-Jayewardene accord 20 years ago, which would have given the island nation’s Tamils more autonomy and self-governance than they are likely to get now or in the future; but the Tiger supremo would have none of it—despite the Indian government passing on some Rs 5 crore (the equivalent of may be Rs 50 crore or more today) as an inducement. Similarly, if Palestine’s leaders in 1948 had accepted what was on offer, a full-fledged Palestinian state would have existed for six decades now, with vastly more territory than it has today—and mostly contiguous land at that.

A sense of injustice is a poor guide to making sensible compromises; and if at the same time you misread the forces of history and over-estimate your own strength, you lead your people into several hells. The Palestinians had good reason to feel poorly done by in 1948; their land had been taken away, their people were refugees in their own home. But what were their realistic options? Similarly, the Tamils of Sri Lanka had been subjected to sustained prejudice by the majority Sinhalas, and laws passed to put them at a disadvantage (such as the secondary treatment given to their language, to reduce their position in the job market). But if revolt was the option, did history have any successful examples of secession without external military support, to justify the war that the LTTE and other rebels started? And having started a rebellion, what was the sensible compromise that should have been accepted?

There are examples closer home. If the people of the Kashmir valley had been satisfied with what they had got in the agreement of 1952, they would have been living with far more autonomy than they are likely to get in the foreseeable future—because they had their own “prime minister”, no jurisdiction for the Supreme Court, the Election Commission and the Comptroller and Auditor General, and not even financial integration with India (currency, customs posts, etc). All that New Delhi had control over were foreign policy, communications and defence. It is hard to think of anyone in New Delhi accepting such a package today.

Indeed, when China’s prime minister Chou En-lai offered Jawaharlal Nehru a border settlement package that involved India retaining Arunachal Pradesh while China kept possession of the Aksai Chin, Nehru should have accepted it as a realistic compromise instead of getting hung up on unilateralist positions that were not supported by history. In that event, the subsequent conflict and its prolonged aftermath could easily have been avoided, and China may not then have become Pakistan’s chief source of military succour, as it has been for decades. It should also be obvious that, even after decades of negotiations, India will not get a better deal than what Chou offered half a century ago.

A sense of injustice can be a great motivator in shaping the currents of world affairs (as the successful challenge to colonialism demonstrated), but if divorced from realistic assessments of what is possible, it could lead down blind alleys. Equally, both Israel and Sri Lanka would be well advised to be magnanimous when they are on top: offering a fair deal can do more than end a conflict, it can repair relationships.

Wary of Islam, China tightens rules

New York Times article .. read in full here

large signs posted by the front door list edicts that are more Communist Party decrees than Koranic doctrines.

The imam’s sermon at Friday Prayer must run no longer than a half-hour, the rules say. Prayer in public areas outside the mosque is forbidden. Residents of Khotan are not allowed to worship at mosques outside of town.

One rule on the wall says that government workers and nonreligious people may not be “forced” to attend services at the mosque — a generous wording of a law that prohibits government workers and Communist Party members from going at all.

“Of course this makes people angry,” said a teacher in the mosque courtyard, who would give only a partial name, Muhammad, for fear of government retribution. “Excitable people think the government is wrong in what it does. They say that government officials who are Muslims should also be allowed to pray.”

To be a practicing Muslim in the vast autonomous region of northwestern China called Xinjiang is to live under an intricate series of laws and regulations intended to control the spread and practice of Islam, the predominant religion among the Uighurs, a Turkic people uneasy with Chinese rule.

The edicts touch on every facet of a Muslim’s way of life. Official versions of the Koran are the only legal ones. Imams may not teach the Koran in private, and studying Arabic is allowed only at special government schools.

Two of Islam’s five pillars — the sacred fasting month of Ramadan and the pilgrimage to Mecca called the hajj — are also carefully controlled. Students and government workers are compelled to eat during Ramadan, and the passports of Uighurs have been confiscated across Xinjiang to force them to join government-run hajj tours rather than travel illegally to Mecca on their own.

Government workers are not permitted to practice Islam, which means the slightest sign of devotion, a head scarf on a woman, for example, could lead to a firing.  Read in full here

Why Don’t Muslims Kill in China?

There are certainly a few who made news during the Beijing Olympic Games, but by and large, the Chinese government has effectively taken care of this scourge. Read on

Why Don’t Muslims Kill in China?
July 27, 2005
Because the Chinese would blow them off the map. Democracies are much too kind to diversity, especially killing cults such as Islam. Freedom-based countries are used to giving in, even to those with whom they disagree.
So it is that Muslims, knowing this, make murder while the sun shines. And they will continue. There will be no let up, none, though freedom-based citizens think that it will someday cease. It won’t.

Now that Muslims are on a rampage, they will continue until the last Muslim commits suicide. And one can imagine how many eternities that will take. So in that we peace-loving citizens have our dilemma.

Not so in China.

You don’t read of Muslims blowing up anything there. Why not? Because the Chinese would bomb their holy sites, their travel routes, their prayer mats while mosques would glow splitting through the sky via Chinese whatevers.

China has no history of diversity or tolerance. China has a party line that one goes along with or finds himself in the pit. In other words, China will not be plagued by Muslim murderers global until the Muslims slay everyone else off the planet except the Chinese. Then the Chinese will see who wins the finality. It will be the Chinese, not the Muslims.

Can freedom-based countries learn from the Chinese? I wonder.

Ali Sina, webmaster and editor for FaithFreedom.org, writes truth: “The hatred of non-believers and the instruction to kill them is expressed unequivocally in the Quran in hundreds of verses. True Muslims, those who read the Quran and are familiar with the sayings of Muhammad, cannot condemn terrorism because terrorism is Holy Jihad and Jihad is a pillar of Islam.”

Daily Ali Sina attempts to convince Muslims and non-Muslims that Islam is not a religion but a killing cult. It will stop at nothing. Its deceit levels are numerous. And its suicide actors are waiting in line to fly into Allahland for the eternal orgy with playboy bunnies ad infinitum.

Ali Sina should know. He was once a Muslim. Having seen the light of truth, he now spends his life on the side of fact pedaling. May his number increase. But don’t hold your breath on that count.

A friend emailed me this truth flyer on bumper stickers:

Know Islam, Know terror

No Islam, No terror.

China agrees with that saying. China knows Islam. China knows terror. China manufactures its own terror and so will not tolerate any other brand. Therefore, in China no Islam, no terror. It should be thus in America.

America should not permit one more Muslim to come into the country. No matter what credentials.

America should round up all Muslims now in the country and inter them in camps. No exceptions.

America should be that kind of example to Great Britain in particular now that Londoners are dealing with their bloody merry-go-round of Muslim bait and carry.

Once America gets rid of Muslims in present location, then America should proceed to bomb a Muslim geography every time a Muslim zealot snuffs out an innocent life.

Keep on with the bombing till there’s nothing left of Muslim hold-out locales. This includes mosques with clerics. This includes silent Muslim despots’ palaces. Blow up the Muslim telecommunications, rail bridges, and their ships in every Islamic port.

There is no other answer to this horrific problem.

Every time I hear a freedom-based politician give forth with resolve platitudes following carnage, I want to cry. It’s either that or scream at the TV. I’m beyond screaming. I’m almost beyond weeping. But not yet.

I believe there is still a chance for sanity to overrule this insane killing cult. But it can only be seen through by being absolutely aggressive on many fronts.

If there’s any question as to how to ward off the murderers, perhaps a lesson in Chinese would help. End

Also read: China officials tighten restrictions on Muslim practices

Islamic militants kill 16 border guards in China

Islamic militants kill 16 border guards in China
aUGUST 5, 2008 Agencies | Beijing

Four days before Olympics

In a terror attack ahead of Olympics, two Islamic militants on Monday rammed a truck into a group of Chinese border guards and lobbed grenades, killing at least 16 of them in restive northwest Xinjiang province, heightening security fears four days before the mega event.

Sixteen personnel were also injured in the attack by Uighur separatists, which took place at around 8 am (5:30 IST) when two assailants ploughed a truck into the policemen who were jogging outside their barracks in Kashgar, a tourist city, police said.

The two militants, who were later arrested, alighted from the vehicle, tossed explosives and hacked to death the guards with knives in front of a hotel, 200 metres away from border armed division, State-run Xinhua news agency reported.

Fourteen policemen were killed on the spot and two others died on way to hospital.

The authorities suspected the involvement of the banned “East Turkistan Islamic Movement” (ETIM) which, they said, was planning terrorist attacks during August 1 to 8, ahead of the opening ceremony of Olympics, Xinhua said.

The separatist Uighur group had nearly a week ago claimed responsibility for a spate of bombings, including the May 5 strike in the eastern city of Shanghai which killed three persons and an attack on police in Wenzhou, also in the east, on July 17 and had threatened of more attacks.

China has been bracing for terrorist attacks from Islamic militants, especially ETIM, in the run-up to Olympics, deploying over one lakh security guards, besides over one million volunteers and installing 300,000 cameras to ward off any security threat.

The attack has put security forces nationwide on alert. The attack was one of the deadliest and most brazen in recent years in Xinjiang province, where local Muslims have waged a sporadically violent rebellion against Chinese rule. Kashgar, or Kashi in Chinese, is a tourist city that was once an oasis trading center on the Silk Road caravan routes and lies 80 miles (130 km) from the border with Pakistan, Afghanistan and Kyrgyzstan.

Last week, a senior military commander said radical Muslims who are fighting for what they call an independent East Turkistan in Xinjiang posed the single greatest threat to the games.

Uighurs have complained that the suppression has aggravated tensions in Xinjiang, making Uighurs feel even more threatened by an influx of Chinese and driving some to flee to Pakistan and other areas where they then have readier access to extremist ideologies. One militant group, the Turkistan Islamic Party, pledged in a video that surfaced on the Internet last month to “target the most critical points related to the Olympics.” The group is believed to be based across the border in Pakistan, with some of its core members having received training from Al Qaida and the Pakistani Taliban, according to terrorism experts. Terrorism analysts and Chinese authorities, however, have said that with more than 100,000 soldiers and police guarding Beijing and other Olympic co-host cities, terrorists were more likely to attack less-protected areas.