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As much as I enjoy the idea of Muslims getting spanked by a county whose government isn't afraid of poor reviews in Liberal media outlets... The Uighurs are not "that" stripe of Muslim. They don't support terrorism to advance the faith. The Han Chinese, on the other hand, have been openly encouraging folk to move to the province capital to make it "more Han and less Uighur". (91% of China's population are Han, but they have 50+ other distinct minorities.) Like Tibet, the Chinese Communist Party is engaging in a slow, (mostly-)unarmed invasion of a different culture within "their borders". Their goal is simple, clear, and proudly promoted: to expand the Han, dilute the resistant minority, and further extend their authority and reputation.

In China, the further a province is from Beijing, the less likely it is to follow the CCP in all ways. There is quite a bit of autonomy for the provinces, so long as they don't push back on major initiatives. The western provinces (Tibet (called XiZang" in China), Xinjiang, and QingHai make up their "west coast"... and 2 out of 3 certainly seem to be getting punished for failing to toe the line. In the internet age, these failures to obey are magnified, and thus the dragon's attention is compelled to make sure that they don't "lose face". Almost predictable, really.

Now, if China were to send troops into Yemen, Libya or Syria, I might be more inclined to cheer!

(Odd choices, I know... but it can't be Iran... they're about to democratize on their own. Not Iraq or Afghanistan... we're still there. Not Saudi Arabia... too much control over oil. Jordan? Their king seems almost rational. Pakistan? Nukes. Egypt? The Suez Canal. Those were the only 3 other state sponsors of terror I could think of!)

Thanks for your explanation which is interesting and true but still doesn't give rise to any empathy, at least for me.

Many of us lost any and all sympathy for all things Muslim on 9/11. And that's that.

Regardless, the documentary The Silk Road produced by NHK Japan and China TV in 1980 provides an excellent view of Uighur culture, since a huge stretch of the old road runs straight through what is now Uighur territory.

There are a few versions of it out there, one is 3 DVDs and another seems to be more than a dozen.