Chris Buckley reports for The New York Times on the differing accounts of the recent violence in Xinjiang which left 11 people dead in the county of Wushi last Friday:
“They listened to audio products and watched videos of terrorism content and carried out physical training,” the report read. “They purchased vehicles, made explosive devices and hacking knives since January and did trial explosions several times to prepare for attacks on police vehicles, according to the police.”
But advocates of Uighur self-determination say the Chinese authorities’ own overbearing security measures have fueled primitive convulsions of violence by dispossessed Uighurs. The government has distorted and exaggerated the ethnic violence to undermine legitimate Uighur demands, the advocates say.
The World Uyghur Congress, a group with headquarters in Munich that campaigns for self-determination for Xinjiang (and uses an alternative spelling of Uighur), said the government’s account of bloodshed in Wushi County had followed that template. [Source]
For more on violence in Xinjiang, see prior CDT coverage.
