The ****trait of a Restless "Olympic Host" -- China discloses protest in
Muslim region/IHT
-- Micky's HO: A protest took place in the "harmonious" Xinjiang took 10
days for the Chinese government to acknowledge, this is the truth about
Chinese "freedom of press" during the year of Olympics. What a cruel
joke with Chinese characteristics. --
International Herald Tribune
China discloses protest in Muslim region
By Howard W. French
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
SHANGHAI: Acknowledging a recent protest in the region, the Chinese
government has announced that Islamic separatist groups are seeking to
foment unrest in the Muslim, northwestern region of Xinjiang.
The demonstration, which appears to have been quickly suppressed, took
place in the town of Khotan on March 23, occurring at a time when China
was already grappling with widespread protests in Tibet and in
neighboring provinces to the south and east of Xinjiang, where Tibetans
live in large numbers.
The news of protests in Xinjiang seemed to underscore the breadth of
China's problems with ethnic and religious minority groups in the
country's vast western regions, where there is a long history of
unhappiness with Chinese rule, and of s****adic protests and uprisings.
"A small number of elements tried to incite splittism, create
disturbances in the market place and even trick the m***** into an
uprising," a statement published on the Khotan government Web site said
Wednesday, in the first acknowledgment of disturbances in the area.
In telephone interviews, residents of Khotan said that as many as 500
members of China's Uighur minority group gathered in the center of the
city to protest government. Some re****ts have said the demonstration was
over restrictions on wearing Islamic scarves and headgear. Some
interviewees, however, said the protesters were seeking independence.
They were quickly arrested by security forces who took control of the
area.
Zhu Linxiu, a senior police official in Khotan, declined to comment in
detail about the incident, saying it was "inappropriate to publicize."
He refused to confirm the number of protestors or arrests, but said the
demonstrators were "instigated by bad elements."
Two weeks before the re****ted protest in Khotan, China announced the
discovery of what it called a terrorist plot in Xinjiang, which it said
involved the smuggling of combustible liquids onto a commercial airliner
by a Uighur woman who had spent time in neighboring Pakistan. Officials
called the incident part of a terror campaign by a radical Islamic
independence group, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, but Uighur
groups have denied the re****ts, and called them part of an effort to
justify heavily stepped up security in the region and the suppression of
dissent before the Olympics.
In recent days, Beijing has also accused sup****ters of the exiled
Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, of plotting a suicide bombing
campaign against China, as part of a separatist campaign.
On Tuesday, Amnesty International criticized the government for its
crackdown on protest in Tibetan areas of China, and said the country's
efforts to silence dissidents before the Olympics violated Beijing's
pledges to improve human rights before it hosts the games in August.
"The Olympic Games have so far failed to act as a catalyst for reform,"
the international human rights groups said in a statement. "Unless
urgent steps are taken to redress the situation, a positive human rights
legacy for the Beijing Olympics looks increasingly beyond reach."
A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, Jiang Yu, denounced the Amnesty
statement as "biased," saying "anyone planning to use the Olympics to
threaten China, or planning to put pressure on China, has miscalculated."
Like Tibetans in Tibet, Uighurs have historically been the predominant
ethnic group in Xinjiang, which is officially known as the Xinjiang
Uighur Autonomous Region. In both Tibet and Xinjiang, indigenous groups
have chafed at the arrival of large numbers of migrants from China's Han
majority who have been spurred on in recent years by official government
encouragement of western migration by Han.
Uighurs, like Tibetans, have complained over economic domination by the
recent Han arrivals, over the predominance of Han in senior government
and Communist Party posts in Xinjiang and over what they perceive as
heavy-handed Chinese government control over their religious activities.
In telephone interviews, Han residents of Khotan and nearby areas said
there was a long history of distrust and tension between Han and Uighur
communities. Some Han migrants insisted the atmosphere remained
volatile, and said that the Uighurs had been inspired by the recent
Tibetan unrest.
Uighur residents reached by telephone either claimed not to understand
Chinese or refused to talk about recent events there.
"Some of jobless people here have heard about the situation in Tibet,
and they also want to make trouble," said Wang Guoliang, a Han grocery
store owner in Khotan.
International Herald Tribune Copyright
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