Archive for ‘Ethnic clash’

04/03/2014

Xi vows opposition against words, actions damaging ethnic unity – Xinhua | English.news.cn

Chinese President Xi Jinping (R), also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, visits members of the 12th National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) from ethnic minority groups and joins their panel discussion in Beijing, capital of China, March 4, 2014. Yu Zhengsheng, chairman of the National Committee of the CPPCC and a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, also attended the event. (Xinhua/Ding Lin)

Chinese President Xi Jinping (R), also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, visits members of the 12th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) from ethnic minority groups and joins their panel discussion in Beijing, capital of China, March 4, 2014. Yu Zhengsheng, chairman of the National Committee of the CPPCC and a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, also attended the event. (Xinhua/Ding Lin)

BEIJING, March 4 (Xinhua) — Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday called for resolute opposition to any words and actions that damage the country’s ethnic unity.

“We will build a ‘wall of bronze and iron’ for ethnic unity, social stability and national unity,” he said while joining a panel discussion with members from the minority ethnic groups of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).

Xi said the tradition of all ethnic groups in the country “breathing the same air and sharing the same fate” should be handed down from generation to generation.

“Unity and stability are blessings, while secession and turmoil are disasters,” he said. “People of all ethnic groups of the country should cherish ethnic unity.”

via Xi vows opposition against words, actions damaging ethnic unity – Xinhua | English.news.cn.

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03/03/2014

China’s bloody train station attack shows how terrorism is spreading out of Xinjiang

The map does seem to show that terrorism is moving well outside of Xinjiang into major urban areas.

02/03/2014

BBC News – China separatists blamed for Kunming knife rampage

Chinese officials have blamed separatists from the north-western Xinjiang region for a mass knife attack at a railway station that left 29 people dead and at least 130 wounded.

Stabbing victim arrives in hospital. 2 March 2014

A group of attackers, dressed in black, burst into the station in the south-west city of Kunming and began stabbing people at random.

Images from the scene posted online showed bodies lying in pools of blood.

State news agency Xinhua said police shot at least four suspects dead.

A female suspect was arrested and is being treated in hospital for unspecified injuries while a search continues for others who fled the scene, the BBC’s Celia Hatton in Beijing reports.

Authorities described the incident as an “organised, premeditated, violent terrorist attack”.

via BBC News – China separatists blamed for Kunming knife rampage.

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14/02/2014

China says 11 ‘terrorists’ killed in new Xinjiang unrest | Reuters

Eleven “terrorists” were killed during an attack in China’s far western region of Xinjiang on Friday, state news agency Xinhua said, in the latest violence to hit a part of the country with a large Muslim population.

A leading member of the ethnic Turkic Uighur community in exile said such attacks were a response to heavy-handed Chinese rule in the region and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, on a visit to Beijing, expressed concern over the state of human rights in Xinjiang, to the annoyance of his hosts.

“The terrorists, riding motorbikes and cars, attacked a team of police who were gathering before the gate of a park for routine patrol at around 4 p.m. in Wushi County in the Aksu Prefecture,” Xinhua said in an English-language report.

“Police said the terrorists had (an) unknown number of LNG cylinders in their car which they had attempted to use as suicide bombs. Several terrorists were shot dead at the scene,” it added.

Eight were killed by police and three died “by their own suicide bomb”, Xinhua said.

via China says 11 ‘terrorists’ killed in new Xinjiang unrest | Reuters.

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11/02/2014

Spanish judge issues arrest warrants for China’s former President, PM – CNN.com

A Spanish judge issued international arrest warrants Monday for China’s former President Jiang Zemin and former Prime Minister Li Peng for alleged genocide against the people of Tibet, Spain’s National Court in Madrid said.

[File photo] Former President of China Jiang Zemin (left) and former PM Li Peng in Beijing on 17 March (year unknown).

The warrants against them and three other senior Chinese officials are the latest chapter in a long-running lawsuit by pro-Tibetan groups and a dual Tibetan-Spanish citizen who seek international legal action against some Chinese officials.

Judge Ismael Moreno issued the arrest warrants for alleged “genocide, torture and crimes against humanity,” and ordered them to be sent to Interpol, the international police agency, according to a copy of the order viewed by CNN.

The former officials will surely not be arrested in China, but there’s a “medium chance” of them being arrested if they go abroad, “depending on the country and its ethics,” said Alan Cantos, president of the Barcelona-based Tibet Support Committee.

Cantos expressed satisfaction with the judge’s order, which his group has been pushing with its co-plaintiffs: the House of Tibet Foundation and Thubten Wangchen Sherpa Sherpa, a Tibetan who has lived in Spain for about 20 years and has Spanish citizenship.

“It shows that justice after all works, against all odds. If you let justice work, victims can have retribution,” Cantos said.

via Spanish judge issues arrest warrants for China’s former President, PM – CNN.com.

See also: https://chindia-alert.org/2013/10/23/spain-probes-hu-jintao-genocide-in-tibet-court-case-bbc-news/

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28/01/2014

More violence in Xinjiang: Unquiet on the western front | The Economist

THE LATEST flurry of news from and about Xinjiang—a fresh bout of deadly violence in the region and the arrest of an activist scholar in Beijing—suggests that Chinese authorities are not about to change their strategy for managing ethnic tensions there. But neither do they look like succeeding in bringing an end to the anger, suppression and unrest.

Twelve people were reported killed January 24th in the latest flare up of violence. And on January 15th, police in Beijing detained Ilham Tohti (pictured above), a 44-year-old professor of economics, a native of Xinjiang and a member of the native Muslim Uighur minority, which has long bristled under Han Chinese rule. Chinese officials have only cited unspecified “violations of law” but Global Times, a party-run newspaper, accused him of frequently giving “aggressive lectures” and “attempting to find a moral excuse for terrorists”.

In another article, Global Times quoted police as saying Mr Tohti “recruited and manipulated some people to make rumours, distort and hype up issues in a bid to create conflicts, spread separatist thinking, incite ethnic hatred, advocate ‘Xinjiang independence’ and conduct separatist activities”.

Mr Tohti is a well-known scholar, focussing on topics like labour and migration. He has also been an outspoken critic of Chinese policies in Xinjiang, and an advocate for better treatment of Uighurs. Last year, he was stopped at Beijing airport as he tried to travel to the United States to take up a teaching position at Indiana University.

The American government said in a statement that the case appeared to be part of a disturbing pattern of arrests and detentions of people “who peacefully challenge official Chinese policies and actions”. Scholars who are familiar with Mr Tohti’s work have also expressed concern. “It’s not a good sign,” says Dru Gladney, a Xinjiang specialist at Pomona College, in California.  “It gave us some hope that some Uighurs were still able to teach classes, speak out and speak to foreign media. I’ve never known him to advocate independence or violence, or to associate with separatists.”

via More violence in Xinjiang: Unquiet on the western front | The Economist.

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22/01/2014

China urges respect for ethnic traditions in restive Xinjiang | Reuters

Ethnic traditions in Xinjiang must be respected, the top official in the restive far western region of China said, despite criticism that government policies there unfairly target the Muslim Uighur ethnic community.

Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Committee of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region Zhang Chunxian delivers a speech during a tea forum celebrating the Corban Festival in Urumqi, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, November 5, 2011. REUTERS/China Daily

The government must implement \”ethnic unity education and propaganda\” among all communities, especially among the region\’s youth, the ruling Communist Party\’s Xinjiang chief Zhang Chunxian said in comments carried in state media on Wednesday.

\” must treat issues of local tradition with respect and resolve issues of violence with rule of law and severe measures,\” the official Xinjiang Daily cited Zhang as saying.

China has intensified a sweeping security crackdown in Xinjiang, further repressing Uighur culture, religious tradition and language, rights groups say, despite strong government assertions that it offers Uighurs wide-ranging freedoms.

In November, officials demanded that lawyers in Turpan, an oasis city southeast of the regional capital, Urumqi, commit to guaranteeing that relatives do not wear burqas, veils or participate in illegal religious activities, and that young men do not grow long beards.

Many Uighurs resent local policies imposed by the government and an inflow of Han Chinese migrants, and some Uighur groups are campaigning for an independent homeland for their people.

Experts say China\’s repression of religious practices has pushed some Uighurs to more strongly embrace Islamic traditions.

Zhang\’s pledge follows state media reports in early January that President Xi Jinping was shifting the region\’s focus to maintaining stability over development, after a series of attacks last year fuelled by what the government said was religious extremism.

\” must acknowledge the long-term, acute and complex nature of the anti-separatism and violent terrorism fight,\” Zhang said, adding that there was no contradiction between stability and development.

via China urges respect for ethnic traditions in restive Xinjiang | Reuters.

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02/01/2014

China denounces U.S. for sending Uighur ‘terrorists’ to Slovakia | Reuters

China\’s Foreign Ministry criticized the United States on Thursday for sending the last three Uighur Chinese inmates at the Guantanamo Bay detention center to Slovakia, saying they were \”terrorists\” who posed a real security danger.

Yusef Abbas, Saidullah Khalik, and Hajiakbar Abdul Ghuper are the last of 22 Muslim minority Chinese nationals to be moved from the Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba, according to the Pentagon.

Slovakia\’s Interior Ministry confirmed that it would take in the three. Uighurs are a Turkic-speaking Muslim people from China\’s far western region of Xinjiang.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said the three were members of the separatist East Turkestan Islamic Movement, which Beijing labels a terror group.

\”They are genuine terrorists. They not only threaten China\’s security, they will threaten the security of the country that receives them,\” he told a daily news briefing.

\”China hopes that the relevant country … does not give asylum to terrorists, and sends them back to China as soon as possible.\”

Qin added that China did not appreciate a recent U.S. State Department call for Chinese security forces to exercise restraint following the latest outbreak of violence in Xinjiang, also blamed by Beijing on \”terrorists\”.

\”These remarks neglect the facts and are feeble,\” he said. \”We urge the United States to abandon their double standards when it comes to terrorism, and immediately stop saying one thing and doing another, to avoid sending the wrong message to violent terrorist forces.\”

via China denounces U.S. for sending Uighur ‘terrorists’ to Slovakia | Reuters.

30/12/2013

BBC News – China police kill eight in Xinjiang clash

Police in China\’s restive Xinjiang region have shot dead eight people during a violent clash on Monday, a state news portal says.

Map

The clash broke out when men armed with knives and explosives attacked a police station in Yarkand county, officials say. One person has also been arrested.

The violence comes two weeks after a riot in the region, which saw 16 people killed, including two police.

Xinjiang, home to the Muslim Uighur minority group, sees sporadic clashes.

The government traditionally blames extremists for the violence. Uighur activists, on the other hand, point to ethnic tensions and tight Chinese control as triggers for violence.

 

Verifying reports from the region is difficult because the information flow out of Xinjiang is tightly controlled.

News of the latest clash first emerged on the state-run regional Tianshan news portal.

Officials described the people who attacked the police station in Yarkand, near the old silk road city of Kashgar, as \”thugs carrying knives and throwing explosives\”.

It was not immediately clear if there were any police casualties. The incident is currently under investigation, officials say.

More than 100 people have been killed in Xinjiang this year in this and similar incidents, which Beijing blames on separatist \”terrorists\” from the Uighur group, says the BBC\’s John Sudworth in Shanghai.

via BBC News – China police kill eight in Xinjiang clash.

01/12/2013

Xinjiang college says approved political views needed to graduate | Reuters

College students in China\’s restive western Xinjiang region will not graduate unless their political views are approved, a university official said, as the country wages what school administrators called an ideological war against separatism.

A Uighur student attends a lesson at the Xinjiang College of Uighur Medicine in Hotan in the southwestern part of China's Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region September 15, 2003. REUTERS/Andrew Wong

Xinjiang is home to the Muslim Uighur ethnic group, many of whom resent controls imposed by Beijing and an inflow of Han Chinese migrants. Some Uighur groups are campaigning for an independent homeland for their people.

University officials from Xinjiang said their institutions were a frontline in a \”life and death struggle\” for the people\’s hearts and a main front in the battle against separatism, the ruling Communist Party\’s official newspaper in the region, the Xinjiang Daily, reported on Tuesday.

\”Students whose political qualifications are not up to par must absolutely not graduate, even if their professional course work is excellent,\” said Xu Yuanzhi, the party secretary at Kashgar Teachers College in southern Xinjiang, which has been an epicenter for ethnic unrest.

It is unclear if such a policy has been officially implemented throughout the region.

\”Ideology is a battlefield without gun smoke,\” Xinjiang Normal University President Weili Balati said.

\”As university leaders, we have the responsibility to do more to help students and teachers properly understand and treat religion, ethnicity and culture and help them distinguish between right and wrong,\” he said.

China blamed the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) for an attack on October 28, when a vehicle ploughed through bystanders on Tiananmen Square in Beijing and burst into flames, killing three people in the car and two bystanders.

Uighur exiles, rights groups and some experts have cast doubt on the official accounts of what China has deemed terror attacks and foreign reporting of the incident has discussed whether it was motivated by punitive ethnic policies.

An Islamist militant group has released a speech claiming responsibility for the incident, which China\’s Foreign Ministry said should silence those who are skeptical about the threat of terror within China\’s borders.

The Uighurs are culturally closer to ethnic groups across central Asia and Turkey than the Han Chinese who make up the vast majority of China\’s population.

via Xinjiang college says approved political views needed to graduate | Reuters.

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