2014-07-29
Chinese authorities near the Silk Road city of Kashgar have cut off Internet services to a part of Yarkand county in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region after reports of deadly violence appeared online, local residents said.
There was also a noticeable increase in police patrolling the streets of the county, one local resident said on Tuesday as the exile World Uyghur Congress called on Chinese authorities to provide details of casualties amid unconfirmed reports that 20 people had been killed.
"The Internet has been totally shut down since about 10.00 a.m. [Monday] morning," an employee who answered the phone at a guesthouse in Yarkand (in Chinese, Shache) county told RFA.
"There is a total information lockdown," the employee said, adding that the attack had taken place "in the countryside."
"It happened on [Sunday] night in a rural place called Ailixihu township."
The Internet blockage came after reports of an unconfirmed "terror" attack began to circulate online.
"There has been an incident in Kashgar," wrote one anonymous blogger on a popular social media site late on Monday. "All police leave has been canceled and all officers are being recalled to duty."
It said gun battles had broken out with "terrorists," resulting in deaths and injuries, more than 20 of them "terrorists," and six of them police.
"I don't know if this will be on the news tomorrow," the post said.
'More than 20 killed'
Meanwhile, a second post said police searching for suspect packages and explosives had killed "more than 20 terrorists" after fighting broke out during the searches.
"After that, more than 300 people attacked them with knives, sticks, and their bare hands," it said. "The situation is now under control ... more than 70 people were detained."
Dilxat Raxit, spokesman for the Germany-based exile World Uyghur Congress (WUC), said his organization had heard numerous reports of violent clashes in Yarkand, and called on the ruling Chinese Communist Party to publish details of the violence and casualties.
"We are hearing this from a number of different channels, and yet the Chinese government hasn't confirmed it," Raxit told RFA.
"We have at least been able to confirm that a clash did take place, and that there were deaths and injuries on both sides," he said.
"We are still trying to confirm the figures ... The Chinese government should let the outside world know what happened in these clashes," Raxit said.
However, an official who answered the phone at the Ailixihu township government offices denied any violent incident had taken place there.
"No, it didn't," the official said. But he added: "I don't know about the rest of Yarkand county. I haven't been back there in weeks."
The reports of violence came as some 1,600 business executives converged on Kashgar for a three-day commodity fair which opened in the city on Sunday.
One participant tweeted that they had lost money after the fair was prematurely closed.
"I am speechless," the trader wrote. "I spent so much time preparing for this, only to make a loss."
"They didn't hold a meeting with the stallholders; none of the organizers spoke with us. An employee just came over to each of us and said it was over, and that we had to pack up," the post said.
Such events are part of China's bid to boost economic and trade ties in the troubled northwestern region of Xinjiang, whose ethnic minority Muslim Uyghurs were celebrating the end of a month of fasting on Monday in spite of heavy pressure from Beijing.
Last year, commercial contracts worth some 42.46 billion yuan (U.S.$6.9 billion) were signed at the fair, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
High-profile attacks
The reports of fresh violence in Yarkand came after several high-profile attacks blamed on militants in Xinjiang, the traditional home of the Uyghurs, who complain they have long suffered ethnic discrimination, oppressive religious controls, and continued poverty and joblessness.
Xinjiang authorities declared a one-year crackdown on "violent terrorist activities" last month following the May 22 bombing at a market in Xinjiang's capital Urumqi that killed 43 people, including the four attackers.
Last week, an ethnic minority Uyghur suspect stabbed a police officer to death and seriously wounded another in Yarkand's Ishkul township police station after he was allegedly tortured during interrogations, local police said.
Meanwhile, a resident of Xinjiang's regional capital Urumqi surnamed Zhang said the regional authorities had canceled a traditional public holiday observed by the region in honor of Eid al-Fitr, the celebration breaking the Ramadan fast.
"It is customary for everyone to get a day off on Eid al-Fitr, Muslims and non-Muslims alike," Zhang said.
"That has now been canceled, for the time being, across all work units and departments."
Ban on fasting
Last week, a college in Kashgar prefecture warned ethnic minority Muslim Uyghur students who fast during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan that they may be expelled.
The Kashgar Normal College's controversial move came days after officials in Xinjiang told Muslim Uyghur civil servants, students, and teachers not to observe Ramadan, triggering protests from rights groups who called the move discriminatory.
Beijing's restrictions on Uyghurs' religious practices, linked to an ongoing anti-terror campaign, could trigger new violence in the already restive region, the United States warned in an annual report on international religious freedom on Monday.
Broadly targeting an entire religious or ethnic community in response to the actions of a few only increases the potential for violent extremism, a State Department official told a news conference.
Reported by Yang Fan for RFA's Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.