Posted on 08/08/2008 10:28:15 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
KASHGAR, China (AFP) - Chinese authorities Friday announced stepped up controls on religious figures and potential "trouble-makers" in the Muslim city of Kashgar as the Olympic Games opened in Beijing.
The order by the Kashgar government followed an attack that killed 16 police officers and a new threat by ethnic Uighur separatists from China's far northwest Xinjiang region to attack the Games.
"To ensure stability, (authorities) have strengthened controls on non-residents to root out trouble, and stepped up controls on key people, religious figures and trouble-making petitioners to stay abreast of things," said an announcement on the city government's website.
It gave no further details and did not specify what "key people" meant. China has already launched a nationwide effort to halt people petitioning the government over various grievances during the Games.
The government said the latest measures were taken in the wake of Monday's attack to "prevent and strike down any trouble" and ensure Olympic security.
However, there was only a mild increase in the police presence in Kashgar for the opening ceremony of the Beijing Games, mostly concentrated in the main public spaces, the People's Square and the plaza in front of the Id Kah mosque.
Police officers with white helmets checked the bags of people walking through the two sites where several hundred spectators had stopped to view the ceremony on giant screens.
"It's beautiful. Spectacular," said Yusufu, a 27-year-old Uighur teacher, who said he believed most Uighurs supported a successful Games.
"Everybody in China should support the Beijing Olympics."
Kashgar's population of about 400,000 is around 90 percent Uighur -- an Islamic, central Asian people -- many of whom resent what they say has been decades of Chinese political and religious persecution.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
An ethnic Uighur man sleeps while watching the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games on a big screen in the main square in Xinjiang's famed Silk Road city of Kashgar. Chinese authorities Friday announced stepped up controls on religious figures and potential "trouble-makers" in the Muslim city of Kashgar as the Olympic Games opened in Beijing. (AFP/Peter Parks)
(slaps forehead) Now why didn’t we think of that!
China must have some sort of self-preservation instinct or something.
The attack never happened and 16 police did not die. China faked it.
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