China Uighurs Protest Coverage Shows Changes In State Media Blocks

Wall Street Journal:

News of Sunday's riots in Urumqi, the capital of China's far west Xinjiang region spread quickly on the Internet, where users posted amateur photos and videos of the violence and its aftermath, including images of lifeless-looking bodies piled on the streets. The official death toll keeps rising, from three on Sunday night to the current 140.

Read the whole story: Wall Street Journal

Comments

[Urumqi]

We should find the facts that the roits was not happaned because Uyghus are seeking religious freedom, Uyghurs 's main frustrations are:

1. Han Chinese"s rapid migrations to Xinjiang, particularly Capital City Urumqi.
The data shows the Han Chinese population increased from 4 % to now over 55 % in the last 60 years, Uyghurs and other minority"s fears losing their identity and homeland.
2. The unemployment rate of Uyghurs are very high, they could not get a job because they have to compete with a flow of Han Chinese migrants from other part of the China. The younger generation feel hopeless because they saw most college graduates could not get a job, they lose motivation of study hard in school.
3. Discrimination and Restriction on the Uyghurs and other minority: In the work place, security check point, weddings, public transportation and religious practice etc.
4. The oil and natural gas resources, rare metal resources and other resources are raped away by central government, did not bring local Uyghurs jobs, economic benefits, but brought the cost of living increased enormously, compared to 10 years ago

[Solja]

I back any person's right to equality in every society. but #1 and #2 have parts that look like racism to me, and I've seen a lot of it as an African American.

1. There was, and still is, a thing called, "white flight", and it is when a black family moves into a white neighborhood, whites start moving out. They complained about blacks moving in and devaluing their property.

2. The unemployment rate has always been disproportionate between whites and blacks. Whites feared that they had to compete with blacks for "their" jobs, and now that same racist stance has been applied to Hispanics

3. It took a whole lot of boycotts, sit-ins, and marches for blacks to obtain the rights they enjoy today, and we still do not have them all. Jobs, housing, the justUs system, and whites have ridiculed black religion, black music, everything, but still we continue to rise above it all without resulting to violence.

China is not the place I would want to live, and rioting is not the way I would go about changing my circumstances. I'm just sayin'...

[ModernTimes1]

Read separatist manual above,,, and ignore it.

[AuntiepoppyCock]

Wow! I'll be the first to comment here. Yippie! Echo echo.

It's a shame that no one seems to care about the disenfranchised Uighurs. You rarely if ever hear anything about their history, accomplishments in medicine, or the fact that many of them appear to be of European descent. In my recent study of China, I found that they were not mentioned at all. I remember the president making a joke about them, which I did not find funny at them time due to all of the suffering INNOCENT Uighurs endured while at gitmo. When will this nation stop dehumanizing people because of their race and religious affliliation? Never, if I look at past history.

[Solja]

Racism and religious intolerance has been exposed to be a worldwide problem. Shameful.

[Urumqi]

Good read:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/07/06/uighurs/index.html