Posted on 07/06/2009 1:54:11 AM PDT by kronos77
BEIJING — The Chinese state news agency reported Monday that at least 140 people were killed and 816 injured when rioters clashed with the police in a regional capital in western China after days of rising tensions between Muslim Uighurs and Han Chinese. Related Times Topics: Uighurs
The casualty toll, if confirmed, would make this the deadliest outbreak of violence in China in many years.
The rioting broke out Sunday afternoon in a large market area of Urumqi, the capital of the vast, restive desert region of Xinjiang, and lasted for several hours before riot police officers and paramilitary or military troops locked down the Uighur quarter of the city, according to witnesses and photographs of the riot.
At least 1,000 rioters took to the streets, throwing stones at the police and setting vehicles on fire. Plumes of smoke billowed into the sky, while police officers used fire hoses and batons to beat back rioters and detain Uighurs who appeared to be leading the protest, witnesses said.
The casualty numbers appeared to be murky and shifting on Monday. A one-line report by Xinhua, the state news agency, giving the estimate of 129 dead and 816 injured attributed the numbers to the regional police department, but did not quote officials by name and did not have any details. Earlier, Xinhua had reported that three civilians and one police officer had been killed.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Chinese government policy isn't helping any either. They are moving Han Chinese into the western provinces to change the racial balance of the region...and guess which racial group gets first crack at the jobs...that's right, the Han Chinese over the Uighers. That's not to suggest terrorism is justified in any case, but it should come as no shock given both the situation as well as the propensity to violence inherent within Islam.
Also Buddism not working out very well for the Chinese in Tibet. Maybe the religion isn’t the entire problem Eh?
Bush’s fault. Or there were’nt enough Obama t-shirts available and they were killing each other to get one. The NY Times hasn’t decided on a story line yet.
What problems do Chinese have in Tibet?
Are Han Chinese really Buddhist?
No. The Communist Han Chinese are colonizing non-Han areas and displaceing the locals. There are Buddhist Han just as there are Muslim Han (Hui). But the recent violence is less religious than ethnic in nature. Of course if Hui, Pamirs, Durgans, and other Chinese Muslim groups rise up the story will be different.
Where there is muslims sh´t follows. Time we in the west have the same approach to islam.
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