10,000 Protest Needle Stabbings In Urumqi, China
URUMQI, China — Security forces patrolled the street corners of Urumqi while residents voiced anger Friday, a day after thousands marched to protest a series of apparently ethnically motivated stabbings in a city already on edge from deadly rioting.
Chinese officials had put a security cordon around the city Thursday after more than 10,000 people, mostly from the Han Chinese majority, took to the streets to demand increased security in Urumqi, the capital of the western region of Xinjiang.
The protesters want punishment for those behind the July riots between Han Chinese and Muslim Uighurs and culprits in a series of stabbing attacks with needles in the past couple of weeks that state media has said targeted predominantly Han victims.
Demonstrators said police beat some protesters, but there were no major clashes.
Paramilitary police with shields, sticks and submachine guns slung over their backs sealed off People's Square, where demonstrators had shouted down politicians. About 100 green trucks parked on the plaza.
Group of six to eight security forces guarded intersections in the downtown area, although there were no signs of new protests forming. No one was allowed into the area without identification showing they lived or worked there.
Residents voiced anger Friday that the government had not done enough to protect them from the stabbings.
"People are angry at the government, they are scared. We are living under conditions that are not normal," said Zhou Yijun, a government office worker who stood smoking outside his apartment block. Zhou said he had not decided if he would go to work Friday, given the traffic restrictions and atmosphere in the city.
Another man, who would give only his surname Zheng, said people were very upset about the stabbings and described relations between Han Chinese and Uighurs as "very bad."
"These people making trouble, we catch one, we kill one," said Zheng, who was returning home with a breakfast of fried dough sticks and soup.
The resort to mass demonstrations to air grievances is likely to further unnerve the Chinese leadership – already grappling with tens of thousands of increasingly large and violent protests every year – just as it prepares for a nationwide celebration of 60 years of communist rule on Oct. 1.
But the unrest shows how unsettled Urumqi remains despite continued high security since 197 people were killed in the worst communal violence to hit Xinjiang province in more than a decade. The rioting began in Urumqi, the provincial capital, on July 5 when a protest by Muslim Uighurs spiraled out of control, and Uighurs attacked Han. Days later, Han vigilantes tore through Uighur neighborhoods to retaliate.
State media reports said that most of the victims of the string of needle stabbings were Han Chinese, suggesting these attacks were also ethnically motivated. Fears of AIDS could also be adding to concerns. Xinjiang has the highest rate of infections in China, with about 25,000 cases of HIV reported last year – fueled by needle-sharing among drug users.
The first needle stabbing occurred Aug. 20, according to a report Thursday on Xinjiang TV. Rumors about multiple attacks swirled, and on Wednesday shopkeepers in two commercial areas shuttered their stores early to protest plunging business as panicky residents stayed off the streets, said a local newspaper editor, who asked that his name not be used because he feared angering the government officials who ultimately control his newspaper.
All told, 476 people have sought treatment for stabbings, though only 89 had obvious signs of being pricked and no deaths, infections or poisonings occurred, the TV report said. The official Xinhua News Agency said 21 people had been detained. While none of the reports gave a motive, the TV report said almost all the victims, 433, were Han Chinese with the rest from eight other ethnic groups.
Given the tight nationwide security for the October anniversary, the protest underscored the difficulties Beijing faces in satisfying a public increasingly empowered by the nation's rapid economic transformation but locked out of the authoritarian political order.
Yet the government has offered few systemic changes to curb the corruption, misrule and a perceived unfair gap between rich and poor that fuels most local protests.
Any trouble in Xinjiang is magnified through a prism of ethnic tensions. The Uighurs see Xinjiang as their homeland and resent the millions of Han Chinese who have poured into the region in recent decades. The Uighurs say the Han have unfairly benefited from the riches of Xinjiang, a strategically vital Central Asian region with significant oil and gas deposits. Meanwhile, the Han often stereotype Uighurs as lazy, more concerned with religion than business, and unfairly favored by set-aside quotas for government jobs and university places.
Exiled Uighur activist Rebiya Kadeer – accused by Beijing of inciting July's unrest – said in Brussels that Thursday's protest started after more than 500 rioters attacked Uighurs. Her account was not corroborated by witnesses. "But in the afternoon, thousands of Chinese came out to protest against the crackdown by the provincial authorities and to demand unity with the Uighurs," Kadeer said.
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Associated Press writer Slobodan Lekic in Brussels contributed to this report.
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CHRISTOPHER BODEEN | 09/ 3/09 11:18 PM |