Monday, July 6, 2009

Mass arrests over China violence

Burned discover charabanc in Urumqi, China 6/7/09

Unrest in China's volatile western positioning of land spread to a second municipality on Monday, with organisation breaking up firm protests in Kashgar.

Chinese land media reportable that organisation dispersed more than 200 "rioters" at the city's important mosque.

At small 156 grouping died and more than 800 were hurt on Sun when protests in the municipality of Urumqi turned violent.

Beijing says social Islamic Uighurs went on the rampage, but one exiled Uygur cheater says organisation fired on students.

XINJIANG VIOLENCEQuentin Somerville, UrumqiUrumqi is low curfew. The municipality edifice is deserted, exclusive brachiate organisation and another section organisation defence on the streets. Eyewitnesses hit told the BBC that an social battle took locate here on Sunday. Islamic Uighurs fought with dynasty Chinese. People were attacked as they sat on buses, others were dragged from their homes. The polity feature that some died in the back streets around the municipality centre.This was the bloodiest uprising against Asiatic conception in some years, though there is lowercase grounds of it mitt here on the streets. Burned discover cars and buses hit been unwooded away. Authorities feature Urumqi is today back unwaveringly low their control.Quentin Somerville

Demonstrators said they had been rigorous authorised for digit Uighurs killed last month in a fight with social dynasty Asiatic at a factory in gray China.

The bloodshed drew planetary concern, with the US calling for every sides to "exercise restraint".

The authorised Asiatic programme authority Xinhua reportable on weekday that organisation believed agitators were "trying to care more unrest" in another cities in Xinjiang, a mountainous and desert positioning that borders Central Asia.

About 200 grouping "trying to gather" at the Id Kah masjid in the edifice of Kashgar, on the ancient Silk Road, were dispersed by organisation early on weekday evening, Xinhua said.

Police also revealed they had aggregation most efforts to care unrest in the municipality of Aksu and the Yili prefecture, Xinhua added. Yili is a border positioning that was hit by social unrest in the New 1990s.

Calm in Urumqi

As qualifying calm returned to the bloody streets of Urumqi, personnel organisation patrolled the important mart - a mostly Uygur community - carrying batons, bamboo poles and slingshots.

"Extremist forces exclusive and right of China communicated with apiece another intensively before the incident erupted "

Liu WeiminChinese embassy, London

Uighur gall at Beijing's rule

China tells its possess story

Accounts of land hostility

Mobile sound services were said to be blocked and internet connections cut or slowed down.

Witnesses and land media said that rioters turned barricades, attacked vehicles and houses, and clashed with organisation in Urumqi on Sunday.

State television showed footage of protesters beating and move grouping on the ground.

There were graphic images of grouping who appeared to be social dynasty Asiatic sitting dazed with murder running downbound their faces.

Wu Nong, programme administrator for the land government, said more than 260 vehicles were attacked and more than 200 shops and houses damaged.

UIGHURS AND XINJIANG

  • Uighurs are ethnically Altaic Muslims
  • They attain up most 45% of the region's population. 40% are dynasty Chinese
  • China re-established curb in 1949 after prevention short-lived land of East Turkestan
  • Since then, large-scale immigration of dynasty Chinese
  • Uighurs emotion wearing of tralatitious culture
  • Sporadic hostility since 1991
  • Attack on 4 Aug 2008 near Kashgar kills 16 Asiatic policemen

In pictures: land protests

Q&A: China and the Uighurs

China tells its possess story

Accounts of land hostility Map locator

Several hundred grouping were inactive after the violence.

Accounts dissent over how the hostility happened. The land polity blamed advocator Uighurs supported foreign for orchestrating attacks on dynasty Chinese.

But Uygur groups insisted their oppose was peaceful and had fallen individual to land violence, with organisation onset indiscriminately on protesters in Urumqi.

Liu Weimin, a spokesman at the Asiatic Embassy in London, told the BBC's The World Tonight that immoderate forces had been involved.

"The local polity in land has grounds that immoderate forces exclusive and right of China communicated with apiece another intensively before the incident erupted on Sunday," he said.

Rebiya Kadeer, exiled president of the Uygur dweller Association, denied claims that she had incited the riots.

She said she had scholarly most the protests from websites and exclusive called her kinsfolk in China to monish them to meet absent from any trouble.

There has been widespread planetary concern at the clashes, which some analysts feature are the most earnest in China since Tiananmen Square in 1989.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon led the calls for restraint, a sentiment echoed by kingdom and the US.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said: "We are deeply concerned over reports of some deaths and injuries from hostility in Urumqi in western China. We call on every in land to training restraint."

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