By Tom Phillips, Yining, Xinjiang province
6:00AM BST 20 Jul 2014
Thousands had packed the stands at the home of Yining FC but there was to be no football that morning.
Instead, as the sun rose high above the stadium and locals huddled under pink and purple umbrellas, a convoy of open-backed trucks rolled on to the Astroturf pitch and delivered an unusual cargo: 55 handcuffed prisoners flanked by rifle-toting guards.
From a platform high above, Communist Party leaders delivered the verdicts they hoped would send a clear message to the “rampant and unruly” criminals they had come to condemn.
All were declared guilty of charges related to separatism and terrorism. Three were sentenced to death for using knives and axes to slaughter the wife and two young daughters of a computer recycler rumoured to have discovered extremist material on a discarded hard drive.
“It was a grand scene,” recalled one witness to the Cultural Revolution-style public “trial”, a 50-year-old builder who, like many The Telegraph spoke to in this remote and unsettled city on China’s border with Kazakhstan, declined to be named. “More than 7,000 people came to see.”
China has witnessed three major terrorist incidents in the past 10 months: knife and bomb attacks on civilians that have killed more than 70 people and been blamed on Islamist extremists from the western province of Xinjiang, home to the Turkic-speaking Muslim Uighur minority.
Those headline-grabbing attacks have led Beijing to declare the “people’s war” on terrorism, a high-profile, nationwide crackdown designed to show that president Xi Jinping’s Communist Party is taking charge.
The recent terrorist strikes — first in Beijing, then in Kunming and finally in Urumqi, Xinjiang’s capital — have prompted a powerful response. Hundreds of suspects have been arrested and more than a dozen executed. Heavily armed troops can now be seen on the streets of major cities.
But nowhere has felt the impact more intensely than the remote villages, towns and cities of Xinjiang; places such as Yining, a border city of about 600,000 inhabitants, nearly half of whom are Muslim Uighurs.
Yining, which Uighurs call Ghulja, is one of the key fronts in the “people’s war”, which was officially declared following a May 22 attack on a market in Urumqi, Xinjiang’s provincial capital.
The security presence has been growing here since 2009, when ethnic riots in Urumqi claimed almost 200 lives, but residents say they have been shocked at the scale of the recent deployment.
Black-clad agents with 4ft bayonets and flak jackets guard the airport and sandbags block part of the road into town.
Armed troops have flooded the city centre, mounting roadblocks and metal barricades at all major intersections, and petrol stations have been sealed off with red and white metal blockades.
Bag checks are now compulsory at restaurants, shops have been ordered to close early and cars are not allowed within 650ft of schools. Yining’s civilian population has also been recruited to the “people’s war”, with thousands joining a volunteer army of “red guards” given the task of searching cars and snitching on suspect locals.
“The government called on locals to join the anti-terror campaign and we actively answered that call,” said Du Jun, a 33-year-old taxi driver, proudly displaying a bright red armband emblazoned with the words “security personnel”.
“We are not the only red guards; they also include employees in shops, supermarkets, restaurants, everywhere. It is a people’s war against terror,” added Mr Du, a migrant from south-west China.
James Leibold, an expert on Beijing’s ethnic policies from La Trobe University in Melbourne, said China’s leaders appeared to have been caught off guard by the upsurge in violence and were now battling to regain public confidence. “Clearly they are rattled,” he said. “The thing that they fear the most — the party, Xi — is not Uighur separatists or terrorists per se — it’s losing the confidence of the Han majority. Ultimately, the party’s number one priority is to stay in power and that is the thing that could result in a change of regime. So they do have to look like they are responding and you are seeing it everywhere.”
In Yining, that response has taken the form of weeks of government-sponsored anti-terrorism events, including “indignation sessions”, “denunciation meetings” and two public sentencing rallies at the football stadium.
“The terrorists are madly ferocious and inhumane,” Huang Sanping, the regional Communist Party boss, told one such summit. “We must adopt a zero-tolerance attitude towards them, landing heavy and merciless blows with an iron first, cracking down on their terror activities with a thunderous posture and extinguishing their arrogant menace.”
Another official warned that the city faced a “life or death” struggle against extremism.
Schools have introduced “anti-evil religion” classes for tens of thousands of students and staged song and dance contests featuring routines entitled Hello, Motherland!, Sing out loud about ethnic unity! and Who says our homeland isn’t great?
Nearly half of Yining’s population is made up of Uighurs, a marginalised minority that has long complained of Beijing’s repressive policies towards their customs and beliefs. They have found themselves under increasing pressure.
Armed troops and a white armoured personnel carrier have occupied the entrance to Kazanqi — a traditional Uighur neighbourhood. Surveillance vehicles fitted with rooftop cameras perform constant sweeps of the community’s main street.
“It all started this year, after the attack in May,” said one Uighur shop owner, whose store was completely devoid of customers.
All over the city, colourful propaganda billboards feature pictures of smiling and dancing ethnic minorities alongside slogans such as “Protect Ethnic Unity: Build a harmonious Yining”.
But the strain on relations between Uighurs and Han Chinese — already fraught in a region that many Uighurs refer to as East Turkestan — is evident.
“The atmosphere is tense,” said Ma Weilong, a 22-year-old shopkeeper on Bordeaux Shopping Street, a new suburban housing estate. “People are on edge.”
Mr Ma, who is Han Chinese, like more than 90 per cent of the country, said he had “many ethnic friends” and did not fear violence in his neighbourhood. He said: “People outside Xinjiang are afraid of Uighur people and we distance ourselves a bit from them in Yining, unless we know them well.”
Members of the Uighur community said they feared further ostracism, and distanced themselves from the recent attacks. “They [the terrorists] think differently to us. Perhaps they are the same as those people in Iraq,” said one woman.
Yining’s journalists have also joined the government’s campaign, with editors publicly pledging to engage in anti-terrorist “opinion guidance” and using their pages to build “iron walls of social stability”.
But Communist Party-run newspapers have cast scant light on the murky nature of China’s war on terrorism and have printed few details about the 55 prisoners publicly sentenced at Yining’s football stadium rally.
The Telegraph has learnt that one case relates to the murder of a family of Han Chinese migrant workers from Henan province in central China. Liu Aihua and Tang Jinmei, his wife, were hacked to death at their home in April 2013 along with their two daughters, aged 14 and three. Flour had been scattered on the floor in order to cover footprints left in their blood, according to one neighbour.
One rumour, which police would neither confirm nor deny, suggests they were killed after Mr Liu, a computer recycler, found extremist material on a neighbour’s hard-drive and reported it to authorities. China has expressed growing concern about the spread of Uighur-language online radical material and has also been offering cash rewards to Xinjiang residents who inform on suspected terrorists.
“They were nice, friendly people. They didn’t seem like people with enemies,” said Zhang Haijun, the 51-year-old neighbour who discovered their bodies. “So I think it had to be terrorists, killing them for no reason.”
Police have released few details of the massacre. The motives of those found guilty, like those behind the recent attacks on Chinese cities, remain obscure.
Henryk Szadziewski, from the US-based Uighur Human Rights Project, recognised that Beijing had “legitimate security concerns” but said he feared Uighurs’ civil rights were being further eroded by the crackdown. Peaceful dissenters were also being targeted. “The strong emphasis on security doesn’t augur well for the future,” he said. “The way forward looks particularly grim.” The people’s war on terror, just a few weeks old, is already leaving a deep mark on the communities of western China.
Each night a convoy of pitch-black special force vehicles parades past Yining’s Bayatulla mosque, slowing as it passes its ornate 18th century gate.
“Too many police,” whispered one Uighur, who was preparing to break his Ramadan fast on a nearby corner. “Too many police.”
As yet another police vehicle rounded the corner, the man’s face creased into a scowl and his friends shook their heads in disapproval. Then, a police officer came within earshot and the frowns melted into smiles.