CHINA: Rights Groups, U.S. Officials Call for 'Restraint'

• by Marina Litvinsky (washington)
• Monday, July 06, 2009
• Inter Press Service

'There has been a tragic loss of life and it is essential that an urgent independent investigation takes place to bring all those responsible for the deaths to justice,' said Roseann Rife, Amnesty International's deputy director for Asia-Pacific. 'Violence and abuses from either the authorities or protestors is in no way justified.'

At least 156 people were killed and more than 800 people injured after a protest in Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR), turned violent, Chinese media reported. Several hundred people were arrested after the protest, which observers are calling the largest China has seen in two decades.

'This may well be the largest incidents of political violence in China in 30 years,' said Sophie Richardson, a China foreign policy expert with Human Rights Watch. HRW has called on China to allow the United Nations to conduct an independent investigation into the unrest.

The protests are reported to have begun with non-violent demonstrations against government inaction after a violent riot at a toy factory in Shaoguan, Guangdong province, resulted in two deaths. A man there was said to have posted a message on a local website claiming six boys from Xinjiang had 'raped two innocent girls'.

On Jun. 26, hundreds of Uighur workers clashed with thousands of Han Chinese workers at a factory where Uighurs, a mostly Muslim Turkic minority group, had been recruited from the XUAR.

Officials have encouraged the hiring of Uighurs from Xinjiang, in an effort to reduce regional income gaps in China, the BBC said.

'We are deeply concerned over reports of many deaths and injuries from violence in Urumqi in western China,' U.S. press secretary Robert Gibbs said Monday. 'Reports, so far, are unclear about the circumstances surrounding the deaths and injuries, so it would be premature to comment or speculate further. We call on all in Xinjiang to exercise restraint.'

Police have reportedly detained the man who circulated the rumours. China's official news agency, Xinhua, said the former worker, 'faked the information to express his discontent' over failing to find new work after quitting his job at the factory.

According to Amnesty International, officials in Guangdong imposed an information blackout on the incident, with websites and online discussion boards instructed to delete posts related to the clash.

The organisation called on the authorities to allow free access for domestic and foreign journalists and independent observers to report on the incident.

Xinjiang authorities blamed Rebiya Kadeer, a Chinese Uighur living in exile in the U.S., who heads the Munich-based World Uyghur Congress, for inciting the violence.

'Rebiya had phone conversations with people in China on Jul. 5 in order to incite, and websites such as Uighurbiz.cn and Diyarim.com were used to orchestrate the incitement and spread of propaganda,' said Nur Bekri, the governor of Xinjiang.

The congress and other overseas Uighur groups denied the charges.

'(Government officials) always blame somebody else for their own problems,' Alim Seytoff, a Washington-based spokesman for the congress, told Bloomberg. 'They never say it's their problem, their policies, it's their treatment, it's their systematic abuse.'

Seytoff said the peaceful protest turned violent when government forces opened fire on protestors.

Amnesty International urged the authorities to respect their obligations under domestic and international law which protect peaceful freedom of expression and assembly, prohibit arbitrary arrest and torture or ill-treatment in custody.

'The Chinese authorities must fully account for all those who died and have been detained,' said Rife. 'A fair and thorough investigation must be launched resulting in fair trials that are in accordance with international standards without recourse to the death penalty.'

Xinjiang, which is home to eight million Uighurs, has been the site of much ethnic tension. Strict Chinese laws and regulations govern every aspect of the Uighurs' lives, especially those of government workers, who are not permitted to practice Islam. Some of the Uighurs want to break away from China and its majority Han Chinese population.

According to Amnesty International, since the 1980s, the Uighurs have been the target of systematic and extensive human rights violations. These include arbitrary detention and imprisonment, incommunicado detention, and serious restrictions on religious freedom as well as cultural and social rights.

Chinese government policies, including those that limit use of the Uighur language, severe restrictions on freedom of religion, and a sustained influx of Han Chinese migrants into the region, are destroying customs and, together with employment discrimination, fuelling discontent and ethnic tensions.

Many Chinese Uighurs dream of recreating a fabled 'Kashgaria'. The short-lived kingdom sprang up after a prolonged Muslim rebellion against the Qing Dynsaty in the mid-19th century. China's Manchu rulers eventually reconquered the region and in 1884 created Xinjiang (new frontier) province.

A rebellion against Chinese rule led to the establishment of the Turkish Islamic Republic of East Turkestan in 1933, though the Republic of China re-established control over the region in 1934.

Another rebellion established the Second East Turkistan Republic 1944. After winning the Chinese civil war in 1949, the People's Liberation Army took back control of Xinjiang.

After Sep. 11, 2001, China claimed that al Qaeda had trained more than 1,000 members of the East Turkestan Independence Movement, proponents of independence from China. Beijing succeeded in placing the group on the terrorist lists of the U.S. and United Nations and resorted to a hard-line policy aimed at stifling unrest.

The Chinese government has mounted an aggressive campaign that has led to the arrest and arbitrary detention of thousands of Uighurs on charges of 'terrorism, separatism and religious extremism' for peacefully exercising their human rights, said Amnesty International.

The Uighurs' plight is eliciting comparisons to that of the Buddhists in Tibet, where protests last year also turned deadly.

Seytoff told the Voice of America he expects Chinese forces will use the same tactics as they did with Buddhist protestors, '...trying to arrest and trying to intimidate the entire Uighur population through this event.'

© Inter Press Service (2009) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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