Security forces on high alert in China’s Xinjiang Province after a series of deadly attacks
ABC, 6 July 2014
Saturday July 5 marks the fifth anniversary of 2009 riots in the Xinjiang capital, Urumqi, where nearly 200 people were killed after ethnic violence erupted between Uighurs and the majority Han Chinese.
A car ploughs into a crowd outside the Forbidden City in Tiananmen Square on 28 October 2013 in what Chinese police say was an attack by Xinjiang militants. Three people were sentenced to death in June over this attack.
ABC A car ploughs into a crowd outside the Forbidden City in Tiananmen Square on 28 October 2013 in what Chinese police say was an attack by Xinjiang militants. Three people were sentenced to death in June over this attack.
Saturday July 5 marks the fifth anniversary of 2009 riots in the Xinjiang capital, Urumqi, where nearly 200 people were killed after ethnic violence erupted between Uighurs and the majority Han Chinese.*
ABC correspondent Huey Fern Tay filed these reflections from the streets of the capital.*
Urumqi in China’s western province of Xinjiang is on a heightened state of alert.
Police and paramilitary have been patrolling the city’s streets in great numbers ever since the deliberate explosions at the local train station in April and open-air market in May. The incidents killed 42 people and injured more than a hundred others.
These security officers are especially nervous on Fridays when ethnic Uighur Muslims congregate for noon prayers. The crowd spills onto the streets under the watchful gaze of the authorities.
We attempt to film the male Muslim devotees as they gather outside one of the largest mosques in Urumqi for the first Friday prayer since the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan began.
It doesn’t take long before the police arrive and demand we go away. They say foreign reporters need special permission to film outside any mosque and must be escorted. They threaten to take our camera from us.
Two police officers follow us to our car to ensure we leave.
As we drive around the city we see evidence of a place that changed even before this year’s bomb blasts shocked the three million people who call Urumqi home. The reverberations were felt through the entire nation and the world.
Urumqi has not been the same since riots erupted between ethnic Uighur Muslims and Han Chinese on July 5 2009.
Barricades exist outside every school and security cameras can be found in many parts of the city.
We also heard messages encouraging racial harmony being broadcast in one neighbourhood dominated by ethnic Uighur Muslims.
Local residents are divided when asked about their feelings about the heightened level of security in the city they call home – that is, if they are bold enough to comment on the record, because there can be repercussions.
One Han Chinese woman we interviewed was insulted by a passerby as he rode past her on his motorbike and shouted at her to stop spreading ‘nonsense’.
Afterwards we met a man who shifted around nervously throughout our brief chat.
“I think the extra security in the city is a not a good sign,” he said. “People should get along naturally. Things shouldn’t be this tense.”
Each wave of unrest has an impact on people who depend on tourism.
This is the time of year when tour buses would be packed bumper to bumper outside the famous bazaar. There are none on the day we arrive.
That is why an air of desperation surrounds us as we walk through the bazaar, flanked by generous mounds of dried fruit and colourful ethnic minority costumes.
A number of vendors complain this downturn is the worst they have ever seen.
“In the past when our business was good we could make between five to six thousand renminbi a day. Now it’s just a few hundred,” said one woman who has been trading there for a decade.
She expressed concern about paying her rent and her child’s school fees.
A man questioned her soon after we left. He followed us throughout the bazaar.
People are wary about what they say and who they talk to.
Very few individuals we interviewed had the courage to give an opinion about the Urumqi bombings or the Chinese government’s crackdown on what it says are Muslim terrorists.
Chinese police have blamed the recent attacks on the East Turkestan Islamic Movement. ETIM was listed by the United Nations Security Council as a terrorist group in 2002, although some experts dispute the group’s influence.
Scores of individuals in Xinjiang have been arrested and convicted for terrorism-related activities since the Chinese government’s campaign began.
“The attacks on the train station and open air market in Urumqi were done by a minority, people without any culture,” said one Han Chinese man who is a long time resident of Urumqi. “They do stupid things. They are not from Urumqi. They are outsiders….They are our own people who are probably manipulated by foreigners.”
Many others were just too afraid to say anything that could potentially be construed as a political statement.