From PC World:
Pro-China and pro-Muslim hackers have clashed online in a series of attacks on Web sites triggered by deadly ethnic riots in China’s Muslim region last month.
Messages left on defaced Web sites have either supported or condemned China’s rule over Xinjiang, the western province where rioting killed nearly 200 people. Chinese government Web sites have become the latest targets, adding to online attacks against an Australian film festival and a Turkish government site.
Searches on Friday revealed a dozen Web sites of local Chinese government offices that had been defaced with messages in support of the country’s Uighur ethnic minority group. The Uighurs, a mostly Muslim group native to Xinjiang, have complained of poor protection of their culture and a lack of economic opportunity as China has encouraged migration to Xinjiang by Han Chinese, the country’s large ethnic majority. Uighurs and Han Chinese carrying sticks and shovels hunted each other in packs during the rioting last month, which was triggered by an ethnic brawl in far-away southern China that left two Uighurs dead.
