MCLC: violence erupts anew in Xinjiang

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: violence erupts anew in Xinjiang
***********************************************************

Source: NYT (6/28/13):
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/29/world/asia/violence-erupts-anew-in-volati
le-western-china-region.html

Violence Erupts Anew in Volatile Chinese Region
By CHRIS BUCKLEY

HONG KONG — Violence erupted on Friday in China’s volatile far western
Xinjiang region, the second time in three days that tensions between the
largely Muslim Uighur minority and Chinese security forces have brought
bloodshed to the area.

The latest clash occurred in Hotan Prefecture, in the southern part of
Xinjiang, whose population is predominantly Uighur. The Uighurs are a
Turkic-speaking group sharing many affinities with people across Central
Asia, and most follow relatively moderate forms of Sunni Islam. Many
Uighurs resent the growing number of Han Chinese people, who have been
attracted to Xinjiang by jobs in farming, energy production and mining.

A brief report 
<http://www.ts.cn/news/content/2013-06/28/content_8355816.htm> issued by
Tianshan Net, an official news Web site for Xinjiang, said that in
Hanairike Township in Hotan, a crowd wielding weapons “assembled in a
disturbance, and the public security authorities took emergency action and
detained people taking part, rapidly quelling them.”

The report said that “during the handling of the incident, no members of
the public were killed or injured,” leaving it unclear whether any police
officers or officials were hurt or even killed.

Calls to Hotan government offices and a spokeswoman for the Xinjiang
government were not answered.

The clash on Friday is likely to alarm the Chinese government. It came
just two days after a confrontation in Turpan Prefecture, another part of
Xinjiang, left 35 people dead, according to the state-run news agency,
Xinhua. In that episode, Xinhua said, a crowd attacked a township police
station and government offices on Wednesday, and the police fired on the
participants. Xinhua said rioters killed 24 people, and police officers
fatally shot 11 rioters.

“We’re seeing now violent instances becoming more frequent,
unfortunately,” said Alim A. Seytoff, the president of the Uyghur American
Association <http://uyghuramerican.org/>, an exiled group based in
Washington that campaigns for an independent Uighur homeland, which
advocates call East Turkestan. “You can see from these instances of
violence the intensification of Chinese repressive rule in the region.”

The clashes this week came just before the fourth anniversary of
widespread bloodshed in Urumqi, the regional capital of Xinjiang. At least
197 people were killed on July 5, 2009, after the police broke up a
protest by Uighurs and the confrontation gave way to attacks by rioters on
Han people, who make up China’s majority. Han Chinese protesters later
marched on Uighur neighborhoods, some attacking homes with bricks and
cleavers. The police never said how many died or were injured in those
revenge riots.

Yang Shu, a Chinese professor who studies unrest in Xinjiang, said the
recent violence reflected Uighur grievances about social inequalities and
dislocation driven by economic modernization, the spreading influence of
militant currents of Islam and the deterioration of ethnic relations since
2009. In July 2011, 18 people died when rioters in Hotan stormed a police
station.

“The July 5 incident is a major factor,” Professor Yang, the director of
the Institute for Central Asian Studies at Lanzhou University in northwest
China, said in a telephone interview. “It was a watershed. Afterward,
Uighur-Han relations have clearly deteriorated. We can’t avoid this
problem.”

The Xinjiang region’s economy grew by 12 percent in 2012, compared to
2011, but many Uighurs complain that better-paying jobs, land and business
opportunities are beyond their grasp. Uighurs account for a little under
half of Xinjiang’s 22 million civilian inhabitants; Han Chinese account
for 40 percent, according to government data. The Hotan area has about two
million inhabitants, nearly 97 percent of them Uighur, according to census
data from 2010.

Government restrictions on mosques and Muslim practices have also become a
growing source of tension, especially with Uighurs attracted to more
conservative forms of Islam. The latest violence occurred less than two
weeks before the start of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month. Some local
governments in Xinjiang have sought to discourage Uighurs from their usual
fasting at that time.

Xinjiang shares borders with Central Asian countries as well as Pakistan
and a sliver of Afghanistan. It came under the control of Chinese
Communist forces in 1949, and swaths are still controlled by
quasi-military production organizations, which run huge farms for cotton,
tomatoes and other crops.

In April, 21 people in Xinjiang died in fighting between security forces
and people the government called “gangsters” and said were Uighurs. In
March, two courts convicted and sentenced 20 people accused of militant
separatism in the region.

The Chinese government has often placed blame for past violence in
Xinjiang on militant groups seeking independence, especially the East
Turkestan Islamic Movement. But advocates of Uighur self-determination say
the violence is often a spontaneous local response to mass detentions and
other harsh policing methods.

“These are not like the Chinese government often accuses or just states —
terrorists,” said Mr. Seytoff, the president of the Uyghur American
Association. “The Chinese repressive policies have driven some ordinary
Uighurs into the ultimate desperation.”