Kashgar is no stranger to security measures. It belongs to a part of China’s Xinjiang region that is periodically racked by separatist incidents, sometimes violent, involving members of the ethnic Uighur community.  It has been particularly edgy in the past two or three years. An outbreak of deadly clashes between Uighurs and Han Chinese in 2009 in Urumqi, the provincial capital, has left the authorities uneasy.

But today the government perhaps had reason to be a little more jittery than usual. Calls had been circulating on the internet for Chinese to gather in central areas of 13 major cities (none in Xinjiang were named) on February 20th to stage a “jasmine revolution”—in reference to the upheavals that have are convulsing the Arab world. An unsourced posting to an American-based Chinese website, Boxun.com (in Chinese, and currently under a DDOS-style attack) seems to have started the flurry. Chinese authorities quickly moved to suppress it by blocking posts on microblogs that contain the word “jasmine”. They stepped up surveillance of several activists and deployed large numbers of police near central Beijing, apparently to pre-empt any protests.

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Post tags: jasmine revolution, kashgar, Urumqi protests 2009, Xinjiang
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Roughly a year ago, Urumqi’s ethnic Han and Uighur populations took part in the worst ethnic rioting in modern Chinese history, killing at least 197 people… Now at least 47,000 cameras scan Urumqi to ensure there are no more surprises. By year’s end, the state news media says, there will be 60,000.

Video surveillance is hardly uncommon in the West. But nowhere else is it growing as explosively as in China, where seven million cameras already watch streets, hotel lobbies, businesses and even mosques and monasteries — and where experts predict an additional 15 million cameras will sprout by 2014.

Much of the proliferation is driven by the same rationales as in Western nations: police forces stretched thin, rising crime, mushrooming traffic jams and the bureaucratic overkill that attends any mention of terrorism.

But China also has another overriding concern — controlling social order and monitoring dissent. And some human-rights advocates say they fear that the melding of ever improving digital technologies and the absence of legal restraints on surveillance raise the prospect of genuinely Orwellian control over society.

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Post tags: surveillance, Urumqi protests 2009
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Teams of police armed with guns and batons patrolled streets in the western region of Xinjiang on Sunday, part of stringent security precautions put in place ahead of the one-year anniversary of China’s worst ethnic violence in decades.

Though visitors were able to travel freely in the traditionally Muslim region, their bags were checked at airports, train stations and bus stops, as well as government offices, said a receptionist surnamed Fang at the Yilong Hotel in the regional capital of Urumqi.

SWAT teams were patrolling the streets in groups of about 10, she said, many of them armed.

Read also about the recent installation of surveillance cameras in Xinjiang, via CDT.

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Post tags: anniversaries, Urumqi protests 2009
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Throughout our conversation Iparhan broke off to joke with her Han friend Mei, whom she had brought for an excursion outside the city. Iparhan is typical of more and more Uighurs, who are educated in Mandarin at an increasingly younger age and leave Xinjiang to attend college in eastern China. Though on the surface their integration would seem to neutralize them as potential threats, in many ways they are the greatest threat to China. As Human Rights Watch’s Nicholas Bequelin explains: “The source of political and religious radicalism in Muslim societies has often been people who were both educated and disaffected.”

Iparhan said there were many others like her. “It is this way everywhere, there is no chance of success opened to us.” It is this fact, she told me, that helped her to see through the propagandistic side of her education. “Many of my Han classmates simply believe what the teachers or the government tells them. If they hear it is foreigners who caused a problem in Xinjiang, they believe it, they don’t ask for proof and they don’t ask why,” she complained. “I think because growing up we know we are a minority and then we see discrimination everyday we learn not to listen to the government.”

Even if the economic realities on the ground are addressed, Bequelin still believes the region will remain restive. “The promotion of economic development cannot make up for restrictions on cultural expression, and there is no look to change these cultural policies. Ultimately the party leadership is still clenching onto ideological clichés that encourage ethnic polarization.” Across Xinjiang’s urban areas young Uighur kids have become reliable speakers of crisp Mandarin. If in a matter of a decade the Chinese government can succeed in forcing the province’s education system to switch from Uighur to Mandarin, it doesn’t seem unrealistic that it could at least partially succeed in teaching cultural understanding, instead of falling back on banal socialist phrases.

But for now the government has shown itself content to simply squelch violence and retain stability at all costs.

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Post tags: ethnic tensions, Urumqi protests 2009, Xinjiang
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“The trials started at around 10:00 am today and they’re still not over. Fourteen defendants are being tried,” a spokesman for the Xinjiang government, who asked not to be named, told AFP.

The defendants are charged with murder, robbery, arson and vandalism, the official Xinhua news agency reported, in connection with the violence that left nearly 200 dead — the worst ethnic unrest in China in decades.

The regional capital Urumqi erupted in chaos on July 5 as members of the Uighur minority — most of whom are Muslims — went on a rampage in attacks directed mainly at members of China’s dominant Han ethnic group.

The 14 were the last in a batch of 21 people who have so far been charged with crimes relating to the unrest. Six have already been sentenced to death and a seventh sentenced to life in prison.

Update: AP reports that six more defendants have been sentenced to death in today’s trials:

Hou Hanmin, a spokeswoman for Xinjiang’s regional government, said six new defendants were sentenced to death and three other people were given life sentences by the Urumqi Intermediate People’s Court. Five others were given prison terms, she said, but did not provide details.

The defendant’s names were not immediately available and it was not clear if they were Uighur.

On Monday, six Uighur defendants were sentenced to death by the same court. Those sentences were the first to be handed down in the trials of scores of suspects arrested during and after the riots.

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The convicts – all of whom have names suggesting they are from the Uighur ethnic minority – were found guilty of murder, arson and robbery during the riots, which left almost 200 people dead.

The sentencing – announced by the state-run China Central Television – appeared to be aimed at mollifying the anger of the Han Chinese majority, many of whom rallied in the regional capital of Urumqi last month to call for swift retribution.

But overseas Uighur groups warned that the harsh punishments and lack of due legal process could further inflame tensions.

Fears of new unrest prompted the authorities to step up security in Urumqi ahead of the sentencing.

Update: See a post from the China Law & Policy blog about this trial.

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Post tags: shaoguan, Uighurs, Urumqi protests 2009
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A police warning about syringe stabbings led to hundreds of people reporting attacks with needles in early September, when schools opened for the fall semester after bloody ethnic riots by minority Muslim Uighurs in July.

About 600 people reported they were attacked with needles, often on crowded buses, but only just over 100 showed any sign of injury. Parental anxiety about sending children to school alone may have contributed to the reports of attacks, many on women and children.

The city is now trying to contain outbreaks of the H1N1 flu, which Chinese health authorities have warned can spread quickly among children at schools.

Han Chinese took to the streets on September 3, demanding the resignation of regional party secretary Wang Lequan for failing to ensure their safety. Many in the crowds cited having to accompany their children to school and take other precautions as part of the reason for their dissatisfaction, in addition to concern about a lack of information on trials for the rioters.

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A court in western China’s Xinjiang region sentenced three people to up to 15 years in prison Saturday for a series of mysterious syringe attacks that led to mass protests against the local government.

The protests by tens of thousands of Han Chinese earlier this month said the government can’t guarantee their safety. More than 500 people in Urumqi have reported being attacked, though state media said only about 100 showed evidence of being pricked.

The Intermediate People’s Court in the regional capital, Urumqi, sentenced 19-year-old Yilipan Yilihamu to 15 years for inserting a needle into a woman’s buttock on Aug. 28, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

China Central Television said the teen was just about to start college and had no previous criminal record. He plans to appeal, the report said.

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Nearly 600 people in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang, home to the native Muslim Uighurs, have said they were stabbed with needles over the last two weeks, leading to mass demonstrations by Han Chinese against a government they said could not guarantee their safety.

Nine suspects were detained in the cities of Hotan, Altay and Kashgar, the China Daily said.

The pattern of real and imagined attacks appears to be continuing. Of nine reported attacks in Hotan, three were actually pricked, while in Altay, four of five reported attacks were false alarms and in Kashgar, three of five were false alarms, the paper said, citing local officials.

Officials and state media blamed the attacks in Urumqi on separatists bent on destroying ethnic unity.

Read previous coverage of the protests over the syringe attacks via CDT.

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The three journalists were tackled and detained by paramilitary police while trying to escape tear gas fired to disperse crowds on September 4 when Han Chinese protested inadequate security in the city.

‘We are regretful over the incident,’ Hou Hanmin, Xinjiang spokeswoman told Xinhua news agency. Xinhua said Ms Hou was expressing regret over what it described as an ‘alleged beating.’

‘Of the three journalists, only one had a temporary press card that allowed him to conduct interviews in the city, but the other two didn’t. They violated our regulations,’ he said.

See more on this story from ESWN.

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Post tags: Hong Kong media, Urumqi protests 2009, violence against journalists
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