David Brophy; 10/7/09; (3 Items)
On a research trip to Urumqi earlier this year, I couldn’t help but notice the presence of tanks and artillery on the city’s outskirts. That firepower now has been deployed to the streets of Urumqi’s southern neighbourhoods, where the city’s minority Uighur population is concentrated. For Uighurs across the world, the crackdown will only confirm what many have long felt, that their homeland is under a military occupation. Han Chinese, on the other hand, see their own nation as a victim of the West, which makes them reluctant to conceive of the Chinese state as a bullying neighbour or of Xinjiang as anything but an integral part of China. The regime’s inability to acknowledge the failure of policy and the long-term build-up of discontent means unrest can be explained by Beijing only in terms of impressionable Uighurs falling foul of a malignant conspiracy.
China vows executions over riot deaths; Edward Wong, Urumqi; 10/7/09; http://www.theage.com.au/world/china-vows-executions-over-riot-deaths-20090709-dem2.html; http://www.theage.com.au/world/holocaust-cardinal-out-20090709-dem9.html
The Uighurs have a right to decide their fate
Wu’er Kaixi; 10/7/09
The world is ignoring another example of Chinese oppression. AS AN ethnic Uighur, I am horrified by the riots, deaths, injuries and arrests in Urumqi, the city my parents call home. I have lost contact with them, and rely on reports filtering out of Xinjiang. I have to accept the Chinese Government figures of 156 people dead, more than 1000 injured and more than 1400 arrests. Of course I am sceptical about such figures. I was a student leader in the 1989 protests; I am still waiting for reliable government figures as to how many people died at the weekend. It makes me wonder why today — when so little has changed politically in my homeland and I, like many others, remain in exile — the numbers are so high and so exact. The only conclusion I can come to is that the Government wants to send a brutal zero-tolerance message to the Uighur people of Xinjiang, to the greater Chinese population and to the outside world that Uighur dissent will be met with force.
See: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/the-uighurs-have-a-right-to-decide-their-fate-20090709-delp.html
Troops patrol riot-hit Urumqi
10/7/09
Thousands of Chinese troops are patrolling the streets of Urumqi, capital of the far western Xinjiang region, in an effort to maintain the peace between the city’s ethnic Uighurs and Han Chinese. Clashes between the groups have paralysed the city since Sunday when a street protest by Uighur demonstrators turned into some of the bloodiest ethnic violence seen in China in years. Chinese officials say the violence has left more than 150 people dead and around a thousand injured.
See: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia-pacific/2009/07/2009792415951927.html
Tags: China, Human Rights, Muslim
Where is Obama and Biden now? Sarkozy, Brown and others? They are quick to condemn Iran. How about condemning China for her atrocities for a change? Or maybe this is their version of the “war on terror”?