CAIRO – As the world is centering its attention on major protests sweeping the Arab world, fears of the spread of the revolution flame to the ethnic Uighurs in the Muslim-majority Xinjiang region is a growing headache for Chinese authorities.

“The ability and scale of this new surveillance is unparalleled,” Nicholas Bequelin, a Hong Kong researcher for Human Rights Watch’s Asia division, told Sydney Morning Herald on Saturday, February 26.

“Police can take away and ‘disappear’ people at any time.”

Over the past two decades, Chinese officials sharpened authoritarian social control strategies to avoid any unrest eruption in the Muslim majority Urumqi area.

Last year, Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang, erupted in violence when the mainly Muslim Uighur minority vented resentment over Chinese restrictions in the region.

In the following days, mobs of angry Han took to the streets looking for revenge in the worst ethnic violence that China had seen in decades.

The unrest left nearly 200 dead and 1,700 injured, according to government figures. But Uighurs affirm the toll was much higher and mainly from their community.

China’s authorities have convicted about 200 people, mostly Uighurs, over the riots and sentenced 26 of them to death.

Following the unrest, Chinese officials added about 17,000 surveillance cameras to the tens of thousands already installed in Urumqi, basically in neighborhoods frequented by Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking Muslim minority.

The new plans put the entire city under ”seamless” observation with tens of thousands more.

Currently, the city is a showcase of the police state tactics that the country’s rulers use in tandem with economic growth to maintain their vision of a ”harmonious” society.

During the weeks of protests in the Arab world, some Western observers have sought to draw parallels between the scene in Cairo’s Tahrir Square and the one in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in 1989.

The scene in Tiananmen Square did not end peacefully however, as the government cracked down on the protesters using tanks and live fire, killing an unknown number of people.

Fear

Being watched around the clock, fear is still haunting the Uighurs’ lives.

Anwar, a Muslim Uighur, found it hard to speak about Chinese authorities even inside his own bedroom.

“Someone may be listening on the other side of any wall here,” Anwar, a 50-year-old shopkeeper, told the Sydney Morning Herald.

“We must think of our own safety.”

Xinjiang has been autonomous since 1955 but continues to be the subject of massive security crackdowns by Chinese authorities.

Rights groups accuse Chinese authorities of religious repression against Uighur Muslims, a Turkish-speaking minority of eight million, in Xinjiang in the name of counter terrorism.

Muslims accuses the government of settling millions of ethnic Han in their territory with the ultimate goal of obliterating its identity and culture.

And analysts say the policy of transferring Han Chinese to Xinjiang to consolidate Beijing’s authority has increased the proportion of Han in the region from five percent in the 1940s to more than 40 percent now.

Beijing views the vast region of Xinjiang as an invaluable asset because of its crucial strategic location near Central Asia and its large oil and gas reserves.

None of the Urumqi officials was ready to give details about the behavior of Chinese authorities.

One Uighur, a 36-year-old food vendor named Mehmet, was not less terrified.

“The government is trying to scatter Uighurs in every direction,” he said.

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