Beijing has alleged that the “East Turkistan Islamic Movement,” which purportedly has links with Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaida as well as many other Central and West Asian terrorist organisations is waging a “holy war with the aim of setting up a theocratic ‘Islamic state’ in Xinjiang.” While this allegation leveled against the Uyghur community is indeed damning, Beijing has unfortunately failed to provide even a shred of credible evidence to support its claim.
A Chinese government worker in the ancient Silk Road oasis of Kashgar beckons two women to her street side stand and logs their details under the gaze of a surveillance camera. Their offence: wearing veils. The "Project Beauty" campaign aims to discourage women from covering their faces - a religious practice for some Muslim Uighurs, the largest ethnic group in China's Xinjiang region - in an attempt to improve security.
Chinese authorities posted unarmed Uyghur auxiliary policemen at the frontline of an attack on a police station in Xinjiang which left three of them dead before a SWAT team gunned down the assailants, witnesses and family members of the deceased said Friday. The authorities had said that nine ethnic Uyghur youths, armed with knives and sickles, were shot dead while storming the Siriqbuya (in Chinese, Selibuya) police station in Kashgar prefecture’s Maralbeshi (Bachu) county last week in a possible suicide mission.
An audio recording attributing the fatal crash in China’s Tiananmen Square last month to an ethnic Uyghur “jihadi” organization surfaced this weekend on a website that monitors armed groups. The recording, widely reported by international media, will be used by Beijing to justify its repression of the Muslim minority in the western region of Xinjiang and across the country, according to Uyghur affairs experts and rights activists.
Ethnic Uyghurs from around the world gathered in Washington this week to commemorate the anniversary of two short-lived independent republics set up by their forefathers within what is today called the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China. Around 100 Uyghurs attended a ceremony on Tuesday at Capitol Hill in Washington to remember the establishment of East Turkestan republics on Nov. 12 in 1933 and 1944.
(Reuters) - China's far-flung western region of Xinjiang is demanding that lawyers guarantee family members don't wear burqas or grow long beards, the latest government move critics say unfairly targets the region's Muslim Uighur ethnic community.
Lawyers in Turpan, an oasis city southeast of the regional capital, Urumqi, have to sign a pledge denouncing extremism and participation in "illegal religious activities", the Xinjiang judicial affairs department website said on Tuesday.
Chinese authorities on Saturday gunned down nine Uyghur youths who attacked a police station and bludgeoned to death two auxiliary policemen in the latest violence to rock China's restive northwestern Xinjiang region, according to security officials and eyewitnesses.
A group of ethnic Uyghur youths shot dead while storming a police station in China’s restive northwestern Xinjiang region last week had wanted to hoist a flag symbolizing regional independence in a possible suicide mission at the facility, according to police.
New violence is reported from China's far western province of Xinjiang Nov. 16, when a group of Uighur youths attacked the police station in Siriqbuya (Chinese: Selibuya) township, Maralbeshi (Bachu) county, Kashgar prefecture. Two auxiliary officers were bludgeoned to death, and all nine of the attackers were reported to be killed.
