Uyghurs

The Xinjiang factor

Sa, 01/28/2014 - 12:26 -- Anonymous (doğrulanmamış)
Tohti has been held incommunicado since January 15; (top) Guzailai Nu'er, his wife, gives an interview to Reuters on a phone from the window of her house in Beijing. Photo: Reuters

IN AN ominous sign of the fate awaiting one of China’s best-known Uighur intellectuals, security officials in the far western region of Xinjiang issued a statement on January 25, accusing him of separatism and inciting ethnic hatred. The statement provides the first concrete indication that the scholar, Ilham Tohti, an economics professor in Beijing, could face a long prison term for his advocacy on behalf of Uighurs, the Turkic-speaking Muslim minority whose uneasy coexistence with the Chinese authorities has grown increasingly violent.

Beijing Claims 12 Dead in Clashes in Xinjiang

Pt, 01/27/2014 - 11:58 -- Anonymous (doğrulanmamış)
Guzailai Nu'er, the wife of Ilham Tohti, conducts an interview with Reuters by a phone from window of her house in Beijing, January 17, 2014. (Photo: Kim Kyung-Hoon / Reuters)

Twelve people died in clashes with police in the troubled Xinjiang autonomous region in western China on Friday, after causing explosions at a hair salon and a vegetable market, says state-controlled news agency Xinhua in an unverified report. The news agency said six assailants were gunned down by police, while six others died after setting off explosives. Five people were also arrested in what the police described as a “premeditated terrorist attack.”

China official seeks tougher rules on religion after Xinjiang blasts

Pt, 01/27/2014 - 11:48 -- Anonymous (doğrulanmamış)
Muslim Uyghurs attend afternoon prayers at the Id Kah Mosque in Kashgar, 17 September 2003, in northwest China's Xinjiang province. (Photo: RFA)

BEIJING (Reuters) - A senior Chinese official called for stricter management of religious activities, state media said on Monday, following explosions in China's western region of Xinjiang which authorities say were masterminded by a religious extremist. Police shot dead six people and six more died when explosives they were carrying detonated in Xinhe county, according to weekend media reports. Blasts struck a beauty salon and a vegetable market.

Uyghur Scholar Accused of Separatism; 12 Killed in Xinjiang

Pt, 01/27/2014 - 11:38 -- Anonymous (doğrulanmamış)
Uighur protesters denouncing the violence in China's Xinjiang province that has left at least 156 people dead in 2009. Photo: AP/Francois Mori

Also on Friday, border guards in neighboring Kyrgyzstan said that a group of Uyghurs were killed after crossing the border and that their belongings indicated that they belonged to a separatist group. These are the latest in a series of violent incidents in Xinjiang, which authorities blame on separatist, or terrorist, groups, though few details are released about individuals involved or the events themselves, and journalists are not allowed to independently investigate.

China's Wild West The Problem With Beijing's Xinjiang Policy

Pt, 01/27/2014 - 11:30 -- Anonymous (doğrulanmamış)
Chinese military police ride past a Uighur woman on main street in Urumqi, Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, July 2009. (Nir Elias / Courtesy Reuters)

Last October, a sport-utility vehicle sped onto a crowded Beijing sidewalk and exploded at the foot of Tiananmen gate, killing five people and injuring nearly 40 others. In the aftermath of the attack, the Chinese government declared the explosion an act of terrorism committed by Islamic jihadists from western China. Meanwhile, the foreign media turned the spotlight on the home province of the attackers -- China’s Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region -- where some nine million Turkic-speaking Muslims, known as Uighurs, have lived under the control of the Chinese Communist Party since 1950. This arrangement has not been altogether peaceful; just this week, for example, local police gunned down six people in the city of Xinhe.

Uyghur Villagers Forcibly Relocated to Make Way For Tourist Resorts

Ct, 01/18/2014 - 14:05 -- Anonymous (doğrulanmamış)
A mountain village in Kumul prefecture in an undated photo. Photo courtesy of an RFA listener

Chinese authorities have forcibly relocated more than half of the ethnic minority Uyghurs—mostly farmers and herders—from three mountain townships in the Xinjiang region to make way for tourist resorts without providing them adequate compensation or job opportunities, according to area sources. Villagers from the three townships in Kumul (in Chinese, Hami) prefecture, in northwestern China’s Xinjiang Autonomous Uyghur Region, told RFA’s Uyghur Service that in addition to being stripped of their livelihoods, they fear losing their cultural traditions, as local officials resettle them to suburban neighborhoods.

EU Joins US in Criticizing China's Detention of Uyghur Scholar

Ct, 01/18/2014 - 14:02 -- Anonymous (doğrulanmamış)
Ilham Tohti pauses before a classroom lecture in Beijing, June 12, 2010.  Photo: AFP

The European Union joined the United States in criticizing China for the detention of outspoken ethnic minority Uyghur scholar Ilham Tohti as Beijing maintained its silence on his whereabouts and the specific charges he faces. The Chinese government said the professor at Beijing's Central University for Nationalities was "criminally detained" from his home on Wednesday because he was "under suspicion of committing crimes and violating the law" but it did not give any details.

China decries foreign interference in detained academic case

Cu, 01/17/2014 - 11:19 -- Anonymous (doğrulanmamış)
Guzailai Nu'er, the wife of Ilham Tohti, speaks as she has an interview with Reuters by a phone from window of her house in Beijing (KIM KYUNG-HOON, REUTERS / January 17, 2014)

BEIJING (Reuters) - China decried what it called interference in its internal affairs on Friday, after both the United States and European Union voiced concern over the detention of a high-profile ethnic Uighur academic from the restive western region of Xinjiang. Police in Beijing on Wednesday seized Ilham Tohti, a prominent economist who has championed the rights of the Muslim Uighur community, from his home and his whereabouts were unknown, his wife and a close friend told Reuters.

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