Riots in East Turkestan: Future of Uighurs

[I-G]

The riot in Urumqi, a city of 2.3 million residents 3,270 kilometers west of Beijing, followed a protest against the government handling of a June clash between Han Chinese and Uighur factory workers in Shaoguan in southern China. Chinese reports said two people died in the incident, but Uighur groups said the situation was grimmer than depicted in the official reports.

Speaking at a press conference held in İstanbul, İsmail Cengiz of the East Turkestan Solidarity Association said around 600 Uighur youths and 2,000 Chinese workers were involved in the incident and claimed that around 30 young female Uighur workers were beaten to death by Han Chinese workers.The tensions in Urumqi have put Turkey in a tight spot. The incidents come just days after President Abdullah Gül paid an almost week-long visit to China in late June. The trip included, reportedly at the offer of the Chinese side, a stop in Urumqi. Gül then said the Uighur population was a bridge between Turkey and China, boosting further cooperation between the two countries.

Gül's visit was aimed at expanding cooperation, particularly in the area of economy. Ankara wants to boost cooperation with China, coordinating political stances on issues of global politics and creating business opportunities with China, one of the world's fastest-growing economies.

Riots break out in China’s northwestern region of Xinjiang, leaving at least 140 people dead and many more injured. Reactions flow in from Turkey and beyond in response to the bloodshed in the area heavily populated by ethnic Turkic Uighurs

But nationalist sentiments also run high and many Turks see Uighurs as their ethnic kin. On Monday, nationalist politicians urged the government to pressure the Chinese government to stop the crackdown in Urumqi. “The Turkish government must take firm action immediately to stop the attacks on our Uighur brothers and talk to the Chinese government in this regard,” Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli said in a statement. “The attacks and massacres have deeply upset the Turkish nation,” he said, adding that it was “thought-provoking and saddening” that the incidents came after Gül's visit to China.

http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/de...ay&link=180125

 

[Ray]

Xinjiang is rich in minerals. To give but one example, the province has coal reserves of 2.19 trillion tons, or 40 percent of China's total. Geological surveys have discovered 138 different minerals. Perhaps most importantly, Xinjiang also contains an estimated 25 percent of China's oil and natural gas reserves, with current proven natural gas reserves at 840 billion cubic meters.

The economy of Xinjiang is being interwoven ever more tightly into China's economy, with one of the leading reasons being both the region's energy resources and the growing skein of pipelines from Central Asia increasingly crisscrossing the province.

The desire for economic exploitation of the region combined with a need for political control has resulted in a gradual decades-long migration of ethnic Han Chinese into the province.

Even prior to 9/11, Chinese Prime Minister Zhu Rongji epitomized Beijing's attitude toward Xinjiang in his 13 September 2000 statement by saying that an "iron fist" was necessary there to combat threats to China's unity and stability.

Since then, Uighurs have shared with their Chinese compatriots many of Beijing's repressive policies, enforcing single child birth control as it encouraged massive Han migration into the Xinjiang, either through economic incentives or force.

Ethnic Han make up 94 percent of China's population, but the majority of the world's Uighur population lives in Xinjiang. China's 2000 census showed the Han Chinese population in Xinjiang was growing twice as quickly as the indigenous Uighur population.

Statistics say it all; more than 1.2 million Chinese immigrants have arrived in Xinjiang since 1970. In 1949, Xinjiang's capital Urumqi was 80 per cent Uighur in its makeup. In 2007, it is 80 percent Han Chinese. The Uighurs feel that they are slowly being drowned in a rising tide of Chinese immigration, with the Han Chinese allocated the best jobs and housing as well.
A heaven-sent opportunity

The tragic events of 9/11 presented China's communist rulers with a heaven-sent opportunity to portray Uighur nationalists as Muslim terrorists in a quid pro quo for supporting Washington's war on terror.

Two months after the 11 September attacks, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said that "several hundred Uighur separatists" had been trained in al-Qaida Afghani facilities.

Chinese President Hu Jintao said in a 28 May 2005 speech, "We will firmly take control of the initiative in the struggle and resolutely oppose hostile forces inside and outside China who use ethnic issues to infiltrate and sabotage."

Like the Tibetans, a Uighur diaspora exists in the Muslim nations of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Pakistan, Turkey and Uzbekistan, along with communities in Canada, Germany and the US. The internet has allowed diaspora members to keep their cause alive, none more so than the Washington-based Uighur-American Association, headed by Kadeer.

In describing Chinese policy in Xinjiang during an interview with ISN Security Watch, Kadeer minces no words: "We have become a minority in our homeland. Our writing and language is being destroyed."

Uighur-American Association General Secretary Alim Seytoff is even more forceful. "Chinese policies in East Turkestan [Xinjiang] are inherently colonial in nature, aimed at marginalizing the majority Uighur people and culturally assimilating them into the Chinese culture by depriving their right to exercise any meaningful autonomy or to develop their culture, language, education, economy or identity according to their own wishes," he told ISN Security Watch.

"Furthermore, Chinese policies attempt to eliminate any kind of legitimate Uighur opposition to their rule as three evils of 'terrorism, separatism and extremism'…The Chinese government's ultimate goal is for Uighurs to adopt Chinese culture and accept communism or atheism as their new beliefs. Then, there will not be any Uighur problem because there will not be any real Uighurs left," he said.
Security Watch / Current Affairs / ISN

Uighurs are the largest ethnic group in Xinjiang but are a minority in Urumqi, where Han Chinese make up more than 70 percent of the population of two million or so. The Chinese government has encouraged Han migration to the city and other parts of Xinjiang, fueling resentment among the Uighurs. Urumqi is a deeply segregated city, with Han Chinese there rarely venturing into the Uighur quarter.


Xinjiang is an absolutely enormous province – it takes up one-sixth the size of China and is larger than the entire nation of Mongolia – and the Chinese government is scrambling to turn it majority Han, so that if one day they lose their iron grip on the country, they'll have one more excuse not to let the Uyghurs, who are more closely related to the Turkic Central Asian peoples than to the Han Chinese who rule the prosperous coastal regions in the east, secede.

Hence all the resentment.

 

[Ray]

Twitter and Internet disable in Urumqi

 

[Pintu]

U.N. urges China, ethnic groups to halt violence | Reuters

U.N. urges China, ethnic groups to halt violence

Tue Jul 7, 2009 6:59am EDT

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) - The top United Nations human rights official on Tuesday called on Chinese authorities and ethnic groups in the Muslim region of Xinjiang to refrain from further violence after what she called "a major tragedy."

Navi Pillay, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, said demonstrators had the right to protest peacefully and that those arrested should be treated in line with international law.

A full, transparent investigation should be conducted into the causes of Sunday's deadly rioting, she said, and called on the authorities to identify the victims and establish precisely what happened to them to prevent a vicious cycle of unrest and retribution.

"I urge Uighur and Han civic leaders, and the Chinese authorities at all levels, to exercise great restraint so as not to spark further violence and loss of life," Pillay said in a statement. "This is a major tragedy."

Riot police on Tuesday fired tear gas to disperse rock-throwing Han and Uighur protesters who clashed in the capital of China's northwestern region of Xinjiang two days after ethnic unrest left 156 dead and more than 1,000 wounded.

"This is an extraordinarily high number of people to be killed and injured in less than a day of rioting," Pillay said.

Thousands of angry Han Chinese, many of them armed and seeking vengeance for deaths in the rioting, surged through Urumqi looking for Uighur targets on Tuesday.

Pillay's remarks voicing alarm at the high loss of life were the strongest yet by the world body. Her office does not have a presence in China, despite years of seeking permission.

Chinese authorities have a duty to maintain public order, according to Pillay, a former U.N. war crimes prosecutor.

"However, it is vital that the authorities only resort to lethal force when it is strictly unavoidable in order to protect life."

The South African, who took up the top U.N. rights job last September, said China must treat detainees humanely and use methods of interrogation that adhere to international norms.

Any trials must be fair and sentences handed down proportionate for those found guilty of committing crimes.

(Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)

 

[Pintu]

China tightens Web screws after Xinjiang riot | Technology | Internet | Reuters

China tightens Web screws after Xinjiang riot

Mon Jul 6, 2009 8:19am EDT

By Ben Blanchard

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China clamped down on the Internet in the capital of China's northwestern region of Xinjiang on Monday, in the hope of stemming the flow of information about ethnic unrest which left 140 people dead.

The government has blamed Sunday's riots in Urumqi -- the deadliest unrest since the 1989 military crackdown on the Tiananmen pro-democracy demonstrations -- on exiled Muslim separatists.

Some residents in Urumqi, Xinjiang's regional capital, said they had been told there would be no Internet access for 48 hours.

"Since yesterday evening I haven't been able to get online," store owner Han Zhenyu told Reuters by telephone.

"No Internet here. Friends said they cannot log on, either," said a mobile phone seller who gave only his surname, Zhang.

The websites of the Urumqi city and Xinjiang regional governments were also down.

But the government appears to have thrown the net even wider, with users in capital Beijing and financial hub Shanghai complaining social networking site Twitter has also been blocked.

Fanfou.com, a domestic competitor of Twitter, was still accessible, though searches for key words such as "Urumqi," "Xinjiang" and "Uighur" gave no results.

China has previously shut down communications in parts of Tibet, where ethnic unrest had erupted or was feared, and ahead of the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown, as the government seeks to control the release of news through only official state media.

Yet in China, where a computer-savvy youth has embraced the Internet with enthusiasm, the government has not been able to control all the information seeping out of Xinjiang.

"The incident has largely subsided, but armored cars were still in town this morning," one user, who said he was in Urumqi, wrote on Fanfou.com.

Several popular sites showed images claiming to be from the riots -- including one of a badly-mutilated body whose head had been almost hacked off.

Reuters has not been able to verify the authenticity of the pictures, many of which, like the one of the dead body, were removed after only a short time on the Internet.

Still, other Internet users took to the Web to express their anger over the riots.

"Resolutely smash the splitist forces and terrorists!" wrote on person on sina.com.cn, underneath a news report showing pictures of palls of black smoke enveloping Urumqi.

Yet the censor has also been working fast to remove most of the comments about the violence in Xinjiang, apparently to prevent ethnic hatred from spreading or Internet users questioning government policies toward regions populated by ethnic minorities.

By early afternoon, the bulletin board on Shanghai site pchome.net had numerous comments about the unrest, but they all vanished a few hours later, and replaced with the line: "This posting does not exist."

(Additional reporting by Emma Graham-Harrison and Yu Le in Beijing; Editing by Benjamin Kang Lim and Sanjeev Miglani)

 

[Ray]

I don't think international opinion would make any difference to the Chinese.

They are what some may feel arrogant, which actually is not arrogance, but the Chinese historical mentality that the world revolves around their Middle Kingdom! And the remaining world is trash or barbarians!

 

[p2prada]

Are the actual reasons for the riots out or are we still living on speculation.

Any videos of the riots released yet? I only saw some women protesting on TV along with a bunch of guys overturning police cars.

 

[Pintu]

Look, let's drop the cultural relativism.

What do you mean by dropping cultural relativism, since Modern China is a multi ethnic society though Han Chinese constitute 91.9 % of the population , there are others, so cultural relativism will simply persist.

Traditional Uighur and Xinjiang society are backward, pre-modern.

Very well, so you are contradicting your own statement ,and talking about cultural relativism when you , yourself have talked about dropping the same.

Similarly traditional Han Society , which respect value of joint family and duty of son to parents, what do you think about it, it is also backward , if your arguments are taken ? and 'Pre-Modern' ?

Han Chinese bring 3G phones and PS3 to Xinjiang and Tibet. We are doing them a favor!

Very well my good man, if your argument is taken care off , Japan and Westerners did same favour to you, and you should be grateful to them also , and invite them to rule China.

Let's not stand in the way of modernization and development for poor areas of China. Let's all look to the future, not the past.

So what do you mean ? modernisation and development means extinction of traditional culture, so why don't you go for the policy 'Charity begins at home' and do the same experiment on yourselves first.

Regards

 

[badguy2000]

of the 140 victims, some were beheaded by the cruel mob in lonely corner.

 

[Daredevil]

Uighur Violence Spreads

Uighur Violence Spreads


While the Chinese authorities have admitted only 140 fatalities, Uighur exile sources allege that there were at least 600 fatalities as a result of the indiscriminate firing by the security forces.


B. RAMAN

In a report disseminated at 2-30 PM Beijing time (12 noon Indian Standard Time) on July 6, 2009, the State-controlled Xinhua news agency of China has admitted that normalcy has been only partially restored in Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang province, which saw the outbreak of violent protests by Uighur students on July 5, 2009, who demanded the arrest and prosecution of the Han Chinese workers who attacked Uighur workers in a toy factory of Guangdong in Southern China on June 25, 2009, killing two Uighurs. The Han Chinese had attacked the Uighurs following the circulation of a report through the Internet alleging that some Uighur workers had raped two Han Chinese women. According to the Chinese authorities, the report of the rape was found to be false.

According to Uighur exile sources, the protesting students carried the Chinese national flag in order to highlight that theirs was a human rights demand and that they had nothing to do with the Islamic Movement of Eastern Turkestan and other Islamic fundamentalist groups. According to these sources, the protesters did not even shout "Allah is Great" in order not to give a religious colour to their protest.

The exiles allege that despite the peaceful nature of the protest, the Chinese security forces lost their nerves and attacked the protesters. Initially, they attacked them with electrically-charged batons. The protesters then went out of control and started attacking Han Chinese passers-by and shops owned by Han Chinese. They also attacked the public transport system and set fire to a large number of buses and some vehicles of the security forces.

The Chinese authorities moved reinforcements of special police units in armoured personnel carriers into Urumqi. The exiles allege that these units indiscriminately fired on the protesters in many places in the city. In the clashes between the students and the security forces, which continued throughout the night of July 5, many were killed. The Xinhua has admitted at least 140 fatalities.

The Xinhua report was based on a press briefing on the situation held by the Urumqi authorities on the afternoon of July 6, 2009. In the briefing, Liu Yaohua, the police chief of the Xinjiang province, stated as follows:

The death toll has risen to 140 and was still climbing. Fifty-seven dead bodies were retrieved from Urumqi's streets and lanes, while all the others were confirmed dead at hospitals.

At least 828 people were injured.

The rioters set fire to 261 motor vehicles, including 190 buses, 10 taxis and two police cars.

A preliminary investigation showed 203 shops and 14 homes were destroyed in the riot.

The Police have arrested several hundred in connection with the riot, including at least a dozen who were suspected of fanning the unrest.
The police are still searching for about 90 other key suspects in the city. "Police have tightened security in downtown Urumqi streets and at key institutions such as power and natural gas companies and TV stations to prevent large-scale riots."

More than 100 ethnic officials from adjacent areas have been transferred to Urumqi for interrogating the suspects according to law.

The World Uighur Congress has strongly denied Chinese allegations that it had instigated the violent incidents by disseminating through the Internet exaggerated accounts of the Guangdong incident. In a statement issued from Munich, it has stated as follows: " Instead of addressing the legitimate demands of the peaceful Uighur protesters, the Chinese authorities responded to quell the protest with the deployment of four kinds of police (regular police, anti-riot police, Special Police and the People's Armed Police (PAP)).The Special Police and PAP used tear gas, automatic rifles and armored vehicles to disperse the Uighur protesters. During the crackdown, some were shot to death, and some were beaten to death by the Chinese police. Some demonstrators were even crushed by armored vehicles near Xinjiang University, according to eyewitnesses."

While the Chinese authorities have admitted only 140 fatalities, Uighur exile sources allege that there were at least 600 fatalities as a result of the indiscriminate firing by the security forces.

On July 6,2009, there were reports of protest demonstrations in other towns of Xinjiang too, but the violence has remained confined to Urumqi.

Till now, the local Chinese authorities in Urumqi have been blaming "ethnic separatists" for the riots and not jihadi fundamentalist elements.

B. Raman is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. He is also associated with the Chennai Centre For China Studies.

 

[LETHALFORCE]

If anything happened like this in Kashmir the UN would be all over it.

 

[badguy2000]

the dead still is increasing.

the mob are still going on their murduring in lonely cornors in Urumqi.

because the policeman can not stop the mob's murdering, some Han-chinese now volunteered in organizing themselves to defence their homes.

it is also reported that some Han-chinese people are so angry that they start to take sticks and knives and revenge Uyghur in Urumqi city.

I am afraid that some hate-agitators go their way this time . the ethnic clash is expanding.....

if the situation went on and Han-Chinese start to to revenge, Uyghur would eventually get into trouble.

 

[LETHALFORCE]

badguy Chinese are handling it their way without outside interfernce which should bring back some sanity, you are lucky you don't have the whole world interfering and making things worst.

 

[badguy2000]

some pictures posted by Chinese netizens.

those are the victims killed/hurted by the mob.

Han-Chinese are targets.

In china,Uyghurs are allowed to have long-knives in public while Han-chinese are not allowed.

So, Han-chinese are always in sorry postion during such riots.

 

[badguy2000]

 

[Pintu]

Chinese city descends into violence - The Globe and Mail

Chinese city descends into violence

The government has slowed mobile phone and Internet services, tried to block Twitter, and accused Uighurs living in exile of inciting Sunday's riot in Urumqi

William Foreman

Urumqi, China — Associated Press Last updated on Tuesday, Jul. 07, 2009 08:38AM EDT

Scattered mobs of Muslim Uighurs and Han Chinese roamed the streets and beat passers-by today as the capital of China's Xinjiang region degenerated into communal violence, prompting the government to impose a curfew in the aftermath of a riot that killed at least 156 people.

Members of the Muslim Uighur ethnic group attacked people near the Urumqi's railway station, and women in head scarves protested the arrests of husbands and sons in another part of the city. Meanwhile, for much of the afternoon, a mob of 1,000 mostly young Han Chinese holding clubs and chanting “defend the country” tore through streets trying to get to a Uighur neighbourhood until they were repulsed by police firing tear gas.

Panic and anger bubbled up amid the suspicion. In some neighbourhoods, Han Chinese — China's majority ethnic group — armed themselves with pieces of lumber and shovels to defend themselves. People bought up bottled water out of fear, as one resident said, that “the Uighurs might poison the water.”

The outbursts happened despite swarms of paramilitary and riot police enforcing a dragnet that state media said led to the arrest of more than 1,400 participants in Sunday's riot, the worst ethnic violence in the often tense region in decades.

Trying to control the message, the government has slowed mobile phone and Internet services, blocked Twitter — whose servers are overseas — and censored Chinese social networking and news sites and accused Uighurs living in exile of inciting Sunday's riot. State media coverage, however, carried graphic footage and pictures of the unrest —showing mainly Han Chinese victims and stoking the anger.

The violence is a further embarrassment for a Chinese leadership preparing for the 60th anniversary of communist rule in October and calling for the creation of a “harmonious society” to celebrate. Years of rapid development have failed to smooth over the ethnic fault lines in Xinjiang, where the Uighurs have watched growing numbers of Han Chinese move in.

Wang Lequan, Xinjiang's Communist Party secretary, declared a curfew in all but name, imposing traffic restrictions and ordering people off the streets from 9 p.m. to 8 a.m. Wednesday “to avoid further chaos.”

“It is needed for the overall situation. I hope people pay great attention and act immediately,” he said in an announcement broadcast on Xinjiang television.

Sunday's riot started as a peaceful demonstration by Uighurs over a deadly fight at a factory in eastern China between Han Chinese and Uighur workers. It then spiralled out of control, as mainly Uighur groups beat people and set fire to vehicles and shops belonging to Han Chinese.

After retreating from the tear gas, some among the Han Chinese mob were met by Urumqi's Communist Party leader Li Zhi, who climbed atop a police vehicle and started chanting with the crowd. Mr. Li pumped his fists, beat his chest, and urged the crowd to strike down Rebiya Kadeer, a 62-year-old Uighur leader exiled in the United States whom Chinese leaders accuse of being behind the riots.

“Those Muslims killed so many of our people. We just can't let that happen,” said one man in the crowd, surnamed Liu. He carried a long wooden stick and said the Han Chinese were forced to take up arms. People walked by with bloodshot eyes from the tear gas.

To the east, on Xingfu road, Han Chinese residents stoned a car with two Uighurs inside until it crashed, pulling one passenger out and beating him until police arrived, residents said.

Elsewhere in the city today, about 200 people, mostly women in traditional head scarves, took to the streets in another neighbourhood, wailing for the release of their sons and husbands in the crackdown and confronting lines of paramilitary police. The women said police came through their neighbourhood Monday night and strip-searched men to check for cuts and other signs of fighting before hauling them away.

“My husband was detained at gunpoint. They were hitting people, they were stripping people naked. My husband was scared so he locked the door, but the police broke down the door and took him away,” said a woman, who gave her name as Aynir. She said about 300 people were arrested in the market in the southern section of town.

The protesters briefly scuffled with paramilitary police, who pushed them back with long sticks before both sides retreated.

Chinese paramilitary police prepare to face off protesters in Urumqi, China, Tuesday, July 7, 2009. Urumqi was tense Tuesday, with protests happening in several parts of the city and both Han Chinese and Uighur groups facing off with armed police.

Foreign reporters on a government-run tour of the riot's aftermath witnessed the protest and without their presence, the incident might have gone unreported given the media controls.

Groups of 10 or so Uighur men with bricks and knives attacked Han Chinese passersby and shop-owners midday outside the city's southern railway station, until police ran them off, witnesses said.

“They were using everything for weapons, like bricks, sticks and cleavers,” said a Mr. Ma, an employee at the Dicos fast-food restaurant nearby. “Whenever the rioters saw someone on the street, they would ask ‘Are you a Uighur?' If they kept silent or couldn't answer in the Uighur language, they would get beaten or killed.”

It was not immediately clear if anyone was killed in those reported attacks.

Mr. Li, the Communist Party official, told a news conference that more than 1,000 people had been detained as of early today and suggested more arrests were under way. “The number is changing all the time. We will let those who did not commit serious crimes go back to their work units.”

The official Xinhua News Agency said earlier that 1,434 suspects had been arrested, and that checkpoints had been set up to stop rioters from escaping.

Officials at the news conference said they could not give a breakdown of how many of the dead were Uighurs and how many were Han Chinese.

Sunday's riot started as a peaceful demonstration by 1,000 to 3,000 people protesting the June 25 deaths of Uighur factory workers killed in a brawl in the southern Chinese city of Shaoguan. Xinhua said two died. Messages circulating on Internet sites popular with Uighurs put the figure higher, raising tensions in Xinjiang.

In a sign the government was trying to address communal grievances, Xinhua announced today that 13 people had been arrested over the factory fight, including three from Xinjiang. Two others were arrested for spreading rumours on the Internet that Xinjiang employees had raped two female workers, the report said, citing a local police deputy director.

The disturbances in Xinjiang carry reminders of the widespread anti-Chinese protests that shook Tibet last year and have left large parts of western China living with police checkpoints and tightened security. Like the Tibetans, Uighur unrest has not been muted by rapid economic development, though the government publicly is unwilling to address ethnic tensions.

 

[badguy2000]

some victim were beheaded by the mob.

YouTube - Muslim Uygur people killed over 156 Han Chinese

 

[Daredevil]

More than 500 Uighur Turks killed in China

Baku – APA. Hundreds of demonstrators have returned to the streets of Urumqi, the administrative center of China’s Xinjiang province demanding in front of foreign journalists to release their relatives detained during the unrests, APA reports quoting France Presse.

State-run Xinhua agency reports about 1434 arrests, 156 people dead and more than 800 injured. The authorities said the situation in Urumqi was taken under control on July 6. Uighurs held protest actions in the towns of Kashgar, Aksu and Yili of the province.

The unrests began after that the Chinese young men molested Uighur women, who were forcibly taken away to work at the toy factory in Guangdong province of China, chairman of the Turkey-based Eastern Turkistan Culture and Solidarity Circle Seyid Tumturk told Turkish Hurriyyet newspaper. Two days later about five thousand Chinese attacked the Uighurs and killed 300 people, which caused mass protest actions in Urumqi. The demonstrators clashed with police when it sternly interfered in the events. Some shops, houses and police vehicles were burned. Police and militaries fired on the demonstrators and killed tens of people. Phone communications and Internet access were cut in Urumqi. Tumturk said the Chinese authorities intended to change demographic situation of Uighur province and to force the people to work in other provinces. “According to the reports we obtained there are more than 500 people dead and thousands of injured”, said Tumturk.

Leader of Turkish Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) Devlet Bahceli said it caused to think that murders in the Xinjiang-Uighur province of China began after the Turkish President Abdullah Gul’s visit to China. He called on Turkey and international community not to remain indifferent to the events. “Turkey must show decisive position immediately to stop the violence against our Uighur brothers. MHP will support the government in this issue”.

Chairman of the European Parliament Hans-Gert Pottering also expressed concern over the killing of demonstrators in China. He demanded the Chinese government to respect the human dignity.

The Uighur Turks struggled for independence from China throughout the centuries. Xinjiang-Uighur Autonomous Province in China was established in 1950s. The Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement, which is struggling for establishing of independent Uighur Islamic state, was declared a terrorist organization in China.

 

[Yusuf]

The news reports these are more of ethnic clashes and has nothing to with religion. Just that the people of that region belong to one padticular religion.
But everyone is talking about Han Chinese and Uigurs. So I get a feeling it's an ethnic clash.

 

[LETHALFORCE]

this is very similar to the Tibetan clashes before the olympics but more bloody.