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*[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/8135542.stm BBC Photo Gallery]
*[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/8135542.stm BBC Photo Gallery]
*[http://drop.io/urumuqi drop.io for Urumqi riots]
*[http://drop.io/urumuqi drop.io for Urumqi riots]

*[http://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/200907/06/P200907060260.htm news.gov.hk: from Hong Kong's Information Sservices Department - Urumqi-bound HK travellers should watch local situation] 6th July 2009


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[[vi:Bạo động tại Ürümqi, tháng 7 năm 2009]]
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[[zh:乌鲁木齐七·五暴力事件]]
[[zh:乌鲁木齐七·五暴力事件]]

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Revision as of 10:54, 7 July 2009

2009 Ürümqi riots
July 2009 Ürümqi riots is located in China
Ürümqi
Ürümqi
class=notpageimage|
Location of Ürümqi within China
LocationÜrümqi, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region,  China
Date5 July 2009
Deathsat least 156
Injured1080

The July 2009 Ürümqi riots (simplified Chinese: 7•05 乌鲁木齐打砸抢烧严重犯罪事件; traditional Chinese: 2009年7月烏魯木齊騷亂[1]) broke out on 5 July 2009, in Ürümqi, the capital city of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, in northwestern China. They involved between 1,000[2][3][4] and 3,000[5] Uyghurs. The total death toll has risen to at least 156, according to Chinese government sources.[4][6][7] The Daily Telegraph reported a majority of the casualties were Han Chinese.[8]

The violence was part of an ongoing ethnic conflict between Han Chinese and Uyghurs, a Turkic ethnic group that is predominantly Muslim and is one of the officially recognized ethnic groups in China. These specific riots were sparked by dissatisfaction with the Chinese central government's handling of the deaths of two Uyghur workers in Guangdong province.[9][2][5][10] Officials said more than 1,000[11] others had been injured and that many motor vehicles were burned.[3] Police attempted to quell the riots with tear gas, water hoses, armored vehicles, and roadblocks.[3][12][13]

Xinhua reported that police believed agitators were "trying to organise more unrest" in other cities in Xinjiang such as Aksu and the Yili Prefecture.[14] Xinhua also reported that about 200 people were "trying to gather" at the Id Kah Mosque in the centre of Kashgar, but were dispersed by police early on Monday evening. [14] As the protests spread to Kashgar,[15] they also became violent.

Causes

The riots started when a street demonstration over the killings of two Uyghurs by Han co-workers in Shaoguan, Guangdong in a group fight between Uyghur workers and Han workers , on 25 June 2009 turned violent[9][10] The Guangdong killings followed a rumor, made up by a disgruntled former co-worker, that several Uyghur men had raped Han women in a Shaoguan factory.[9][16] The Ürümqi riots began after a protest held in the Grand Bazaar denouncing the government's handling of the incident and demanding a full investigation of the killings.[13] According to exiled leaders, the death toll in the Guangdong incident was much higher than reported; although Xinhua reported that the person responsible for spreading the rumours was arrested, Uyghurs alleged the authorities also failed to protect the Uyghur workers, or to arrest any of the Han Chinese involved.[17]

Central government officials, on the other hand, said the riots were "a preempted, organized violent crime" which was "instigated and directed from abroad, and carried out by outlaws in the country", meaning the East Turkestan independence movement and external forces supporting Uyghur independence[18] led by Uyghur dissident Rebiya Kadeer working from abroad.[18] Nur Bekri, chairman of the Xinjiang regional government, said in a televised speech on the morning of 6 July that the movement came after a conflict between Uygur and Han people in a toy factory in the southern Guangdong province on 26 June was "used by some overseas opposition forces to instigate Sunday's unrest and undermine the ethnic unity and social stability in the autonomous region, with an aim to split the country";[19] the government asserts that the World Uyghur Congress "has recently been instigating an unrest via the Internet among other means, calling on the outlaws 'to be braver' and 'to do something big.'"[19] Kadeer has denied the charges.[9]

Initial demonstrations and escalation

The New York Times cites an eyewitness who said the riots started sometime after 6 p.m. on 5 July. The protesters took to the streets, burning and smashing vehicles and confronting security forces, following a protest there to denounce government handling of a conflict involving Han Chinese and Uyghur factory workers in far southern China in late June, when two Uyghurs died.[9] At least 1,000 Uyghurs were involved in the rioting when it began,[2][3][4] and the number of rioters may have risen to as many as 3,000.[5]

The exiled World Uyghur Congress said the demonstration began as a peaceful assembly protesting discrimination and "demanding an explanation" for the events in Shaoguan,[10] and that the protests turned violent because of police "brutality"[20] or police opening fire "indiscriminately" into the crowd.[21] The New York Times separately reported that violence erupted when police "confronted a protest march".[9] One witness reported to the Radio Free Asia that the demonstrators were "beaten very badly" with "electroshock weapons" before the riot erupted in Uyghur areas of the city.[22] Another witness told Agence France-Presse that the confrontation between protesters and police involved about 3,000 Uyghurs—some of whom were armed with batons and knives.[21] A witness named Linuxleio told BBC News that the rioters were not only fighting the police, but also targeting anyone who is a Han Chinese.[23] Jane Macartney of The Times characterized the first day's rioting as consisting mainly of "Han stabbed by marauding gangs of U[y]ghurs."[24] About 1,000 police officers were dispatched with tasers and weapons, and they fired gunshots into the air to try to quell the unrest.[21] Up to Sunday evening, 1,434 suspects in connection with the riot were arrested.[25]

Xinhua reported that 156 people were killed (129 men and 27 women) and 1080 injured,[26] but predicted that the death toll would continue to rise.[15] The World Uyghur Congress has claimed that the death toll was much higher, at around 600.[4] Xinhua has not yet disclosed what proportion of the dead are Uyghur and what proportion are Han;[15] as for the injured, however, among the 291 injured people received by the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region People's Hospital, 233 were Han Chinese, 39 were Uygurs.[6][27] During the riot, 260 vehicles were destroyed, including 190 buses. 220 arsons occured and 2 buildings were burnt down.[28]

Chinese bloggers wrote that at least one bomb exploded during the incident. The police imposed vehicular curfew, and had reimposed order by the morning of 6 July.[20] However, the city remained tense while journalists invited into the city witnessed confrontational scenes between Chinese troops and Uyghurs demanding the release of family members they said had been arbitrarily arrested.[24] The Times reported that smaller fights were frequently breaking out between Uyghurs and Han, and that "mobs" of Han citizens had organized to take revenge on Uyghurs.[24][29]

Curfew and communications

China's two large mobile service providers have not been uniform in their response to the riots. China Mobile suspended its service in the region "to help keep the peace and prevent the incident from spreading further," while China Unicom said there was no interruption of its service in Xinjiang.[20] Internet connections in the region had been locked down,[30][31] and many unauthorized postings on local sites and Google were claimed to have been "harmonised" by government censors; images and video footage of the demonstrations and rioting, however, were soon found posted on Twitter, YouTube and Flickr.[32] The Xinjiang Regional Government's official website, as well as that of the Urumqi Municipal government, has been inaccessible worldwide since the beginning of the protests.[17]

Chinese television broadcast graphic footage of cars being smashed and people being beaten.[33] Xinjiang Autonomous Region Chairman Nur Bekri delivered a lengthy address on the situation, and its origins in Guangdong from several weeks earlier and claimed that the government on both Guangdong and Xinjiang governments had dealt with the deaths of the workers properly and with respect. Bekri, an ethnic Uyghur, further condemned the riots as "pre-meditated and planned", and reiterated the party line.[34]

Chinese government management of press

Peter Foster of the Daily Telegraph observed that "long-standing China commentators have been astonished at the speed at which Beijing has moved to seize the news agenda on this event," and attributed it to his belief that "China doesn’t have a great deal to hide".[8]

Shirong Chen, China editor on the BBC World Service, remarked at the improvement in media management by Xinhua: "To be more credible, it released video footage a few hours after the event, not two weeks." [35] Hours after troops stopped the rioting, the state invited foreign journalists on an official fact-finding trip to Urumqi;[36] journalists were corralled into the same downtown hotel, but were allowed to visit troublespots and hospitals.[8] The New York Times said "Chinese experts clearly have studied the so-called colour revolutions — in Georgia and Ukraine, and last month’s protests in Iran — for the ways that the Internet and mobile communication devices helped protesters organize and reach the outside world, and for ways that governments sought to counter them." A University of California, Berkeley academic said that the Chinese authorities had learned from past mistakes, and were becoming more sophisticated.[36]

The Han response

Despite many blocks and censorship, Internet watchers have monitored continued attempts by netizens to vent their anger. Many messages were ethnically charged, and posts were swiftly deleted. Common themes were calls for punishment for those responsible; voices echoing nationalist sentiment evoked the name of feared General Wang Zhen.[37]

In the wake of the riots there have been reports of large-scale armed demonstrations by ethnic Han Chinese in Urumqi, said to number 10,000 people.[29]

See also

References

  1. ^ Note: The Traditional Chinese name is generally used by independent Chinese media such as Duowei while the name written in Simplified Chinese is used by Chinese authorities and Chinese state media outlets like Xinhua
  2. ^ a b c Epstein, Gady (5 July 2009). "Uighur Unrest". Forbes. Retrieved 5 July 2009.
  3. ^ a b c d Agencies (5 July 2009). "Civilians die in China riots". Al Jazeera. Retrieved 5 July 2009.
  4. ^ a b c d "China's Xinjiang hit by violence". BBC News. 6 July 2009. Retrieved 6 July 2009.
  5. ^ a b c Macartney, Jane (5 July 2009). "China in deadly crackdown after Uighurs go on rampage". The Times. Retrieved 5 July 2009.
  6. ^ a b "Death toll in Xinjiang riot rises to 140, still climbing". Xinhua. 6 July 2009. Retrieved 6 July 2009.
  7. ^ "China says 140 dead in Xinjiang unrest". Reuters. 6 June 2009.
  8. ^ a b c Foster, Peter (7 July 2009). "Uighur unrest: not another Tiananmen". The Daily Telegraph.
  9. ^ a b c d e f Wong, Edward (5 July 2009). "Riots in Western China Amid Ethnic Tension". The New York Times. Retrieved 5 July 2009.
  10. ^ a b c Reuters (5 July 2009). "China calls Xinjiang riot a plot against its rule". {{cite news}}: |author= has generic name (help)
  11. ^ Angry Uighurs defy Chinese police, BBC News, 7 July 09
  12. ^ Macartney, Jane (5 July 2009). "Uighur unrest threatens Beijing rulers' biggest party for a decade".
  13. ^ a b Branigan, Tania; Watts, Jonathan (5 July 2009). "Uighur Muslims riot as ethnic tensions rise in China". The Guardian. Retrieved 5 July 2009.
  14. ^ a b "Mass arrests over China violence". BBC News. 7 July 2009.
  15. ^ a b c Kuhn, Anthony; Block, Melissa (6 July 2009). "China Ethnic Unrest kills 156". All Things Considered. National Public Radio. Retrieved 6 July 2009.
  16. ^ "'No Rapes' in Riot Town". Radio Free Asia. 29 June 2009.
  17. ^ a b "China Says 140 Die in Riot, Uighur Separatists Blamed (Update2)". Bloomberg News. 5 July 2009.
  18. ^ a b "Civilians and armed police officer killed in NW China violence". Xinhua News. 5 July 2009. Retrieved 5 July 2009.
  19. ^ a b Xinhua (6 July 2009). "Civilians, officer killed in Urumqi unrest". China Daily.
  20. ^ a b c Demick, Barbara (6 July 2009). "140 slain as Chinese riot police, Muslims clash in northwestern city".
  21. ^ a b c Barriaux, Marianne (6 July 2009). "Three die during riots in China's Xinjiang region: state media". AFP.
  22. ^ "Urumqi Tense, Quiet after Violence". Radio Free Asia. 7 July 2009.
  23. ^ "Accounts of Xinjiang violence". BBC News. 6 July 2009.
  24. ^ a b c Macartney, Jane (7 July 2009). "Riot police battle protesters as China's Uighur crisis escalates".
  25. ^ "Police arrests 1,434 suspects in connection with Xinjiang riot". Xinhua. 7 July 2009.
  26. ^ "Death toll in Xinjiang riot rises to 156". Xinhua. 7 July 2009.
  27. ^ "Recalling the nightmare: witnesses' account of Xinjiang riot". Xinhua. 6 July 2009.
  28. ^ "乌鲁木齐暴力事件已致140人死亡 数百疑犯被抓". Sina.com (in Chinese). 6 July 2009.
  29. ^ a b "Han Chinese mob takes to the streets in Urumqi in hunt for Uighur Muslims". The Telegraph. 7 July 2009.
  30. ^ Graham-Harrison and Yu Le, Emma (6 July 2009). "Residents say Internet down in Xinjiang riot city". {{cite news}}: More than one of |author= and |last= specified (help)
  31. ^ "Internet cut in Urumqi to contain violence: media". AFP. 7 July 2009.
  32. ^ Doran, D'Arcy (5 July 2009). "Savvy Internet users defy China's censors on riot". AFP.
  33. ^ Martin, Dan (7 July 2009). "156 killed, new protest put down - China". Adelaide Now. {{cite news}}: More than one of |author= and |last= specified (help)
  34. ^ Xinjiang chairman delivers message to citizens
  35. ^ Ward, Mark (6 July 2009). "China clampdown on tech in Urumqi". BBC News.
  36. ^ a b Wines, Michael (7 July 2009). "In Latest Upheaval, China Applies New Strategies to Control Flow of Information". The New York Times.
  37. ^ "Chinese go online to vent ire at Xinjiang unrest". Reuters. 7 July 2009.

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