Was Needle Panic in China a Fake Frenzy?
The Toronto Star looks at whether recent reports of organized syringe attacks in Xinjiang, which subsequently sparked protests, are truth or rumor:
Demonstrations by frightened Chinese erupted in the Xinjiang capital last week amid claims that the region’s native Uighurs had launched a wave of ...
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[...] “Needle Attacks” my initial response is “Here we go again.” Sophie Beach at China Digital Times has linked to two different stories that both call into question the veracity of the incidents [...]
I understand that there are always different voices over the same issue, but I consider this kind of “questioning” a piece of joke. It is like these “journalists” were saying right after 7.5 that the Chinese government was killing Uyghurs again, and like they were saying all those killer were actually angry protesters.
For me, this questioning is way beyond the limitation of a legitimate questioning of the government information. Even when they have to recognizing there are hundreds of confirmed cases of pricking, instead of conducting in-depth investigation, some “journalists” still indulge themselves in their fantasy of finding a liar government.
Of course there are many cases of needle pricking, pin pricking, but is this the point? Do they really have to have syringes to confirm the attack? Or for them, only syringes prick? Of course there are many different kinds of rumors, and that is because of the government news blackout. It’s not like people are deliberately disseminate rumors. People were scared when hundreds of them were attacked. Those “journalists” know there are needles and pins involved because police captured attackers when they were pricking people. The purpose of pricking is not to kill, but to spread terror and sense of fear.
What makes that Reuters “journalist” more ridiculous is she even blames the government text message for giving “copycats” cues for action. Well, the text message was sent to fool local people into believing there were no attacks when many of them had already learned pricking. The message was sent two weeks after the attacks actually began. This “journalist” lacks the basic sense of logic.
I understand those two paragraphs are taken out of a context, but I have a feeling after reading them that Urumqi residents are a bunch of scare-mongers who prefer to scare themselves to death, or a bunch of dupes who are used by their government into a separatists-hunting game.
BTW, I am a resident of Urumqi, Xinjiang.
The whole Urumqi protests issue is another problem China needs to deal with. Asia Chronicle News has a number of commentaries and analyses on China’s internal and external situation. Worth a read I think. asiachroniclenews.com
[...] new reports surface, a blogger at Chinese Digital Times cites this Toronto Star account questioning the veracity of the original reports: But days after reports of the attacks in state media, credible evidence [...]
[...] September 11, 2009 · Leave a Comment Was the needle panic in China a fake frenzy? [...]