Rising Tension in China’s Xinjiang Region after Weekend Attacks
NTDTV, 4 August 2011
Days after last weekend’s violence in Kashgar city, local residents are tense and edgy.
The city has been placed under heavy security, as armed Chinese paramilitary police patrol the streets. More than 20 anti-riot vehicles have been deployed in the city center.
Chinese authorities took Reuters reporters on a tour to cover the aftermath. But, reporters were only allowed to interview certain people.
[Wang Jindong, Victim of Weekend Attack]:
“They killed people standing nearby, people ran away. But I don’t remember, I was brought directly to the hospital.”
Chinese authorities blame Uighur Muslim separatists for last weekend’s violence.
The World Uyghur Congress President, Rebiya Kadeer says – in a press statement on their website – the Chinese regime’s discriminatory policies have created “An environment of hopelessness” for Uighurs.
The German-based rights group spokesperson says Uighurs don’t feel safe at home.
[Dilxat Raxit, World Uyghur Congress Spokesperson]:
“China’s armed police forces just make forced entries to people’s houses at any time without going through any legal procedures. This has caused people to live in fear and feel under pressure in their daily life.”
Chinese officials allege the Uighur attackers are terrorists who have received training in Pakistan.
World Uyghur Congress Washington DC-based spokesperson, Alim Seytoff told NTD that Chinese authorities try to make the international community believe that Uighur Muslims are terrorists.
Seytoff says their aim is to, “Justify the follow-up [of] heavy-handed repression of and wholesale attack on the peaceful Uighur people, and [to] deflect international concern and criticism of the terrible human rights situation in East Turkestan.”
Uighur eyewitnesses informed the World Uyghur Congress the weekend attackers are not terrorists as alleged by the Chinese regime.
Seytoff says, “They were just desperate Uighurs who simply had enough of China’s brutal rule in East Turkestan and had lost all hope of resolving their legitimate grievances through peaceful means.”
State-controlled Xinhua News Agency reported Chinese police had shot dead two ethnic Uighur suspects for last Sunday’s incident. The shooting raises the death toll to 22.