Michael Sheridan, Kashgar, China
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From The Sunday Times
July 22, 2007
Beijing’s ‘war on terror’ hides brutal crackdown on Muslims
THE CHINESE executioners came for Ismail Semed before 9am. They led him out of his cell as the sun climbed over the Tien Shan mountains in the land he called East Turkestan.
The day before, he had seen his wife, Buhejer, his son, 7, and his daughter, 6, for the last time. After three years in prison and 15 months of uncertainty since a secret trial, they had 10 minutes to say farewell.
Semed was 37, a Muslim and a political activist. He was not guilty of murder nor any act of violence.
Three Chinese judges sentenced him to death for “attempting to split the motherland” and possession of firearms and explosives. He said he was tortured into a confession. Two men whose evidence was used against him were already dead, having been executed in 1999.
Multimedia
Multimedia
In his final moments with his family - his parents, brother and sister were also there, all crying - he quietly accepted his fate.
“I did my best to prove I was innocent. I am so sorry that I leave you with two children. Please take care of them and let them get a good education,” he told his wife.
The end seems to have been quick. A group of prisoners were executed at the jail that morning, February 8, Chinese officials confirmed, and economy was the order of the day.
They gave Semed’s body back to his family at a dusty cemetery where devout Muslims are laid to rest with no tombstones to mark their graves.
Buhejer described it to a reporter who called from Washington on behalf of Radio Free Asia, about the only source of regular news on this forbidding place. “I saw only one bullet hole,” she said, “in his heart.”
The dead man was one of 9m Uighur Muslims in China’s far west, a Turkic people whose quest for national identity is one of history’s lost causes.
The dying embers of their struggle flamed into protests, shootings and bombings in the 1990s, all concealed from the world until September 11, 2001, when China discovered the usefulness of the “war on terror”.
Today China is waging a propaganda and security battle to guarantee its control over Xinjiang, its name for the vast province rich in minerals and strategic supplies of oil and gas which are vital to the expanding Chinese economy.
China claims that Al-Qaeda has trained more than 1,000 members of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, classified as a terrorist group by America and the United Nations.
The group took its name from the short-lived Republic of East Turkestan that was declared in Xinjiang after the second world war, then crushed by the communist revolution of 1949.
China has persuaded Pakistan and Kazakhstan to hand over captured militants for interrogation, secret trials and execution, a policy that may have fuelled the fundamentalist rage now gripping Pakistan.
Semed, alleged to be a political thinker behind the group, was caught while studying in Rawal-pindi in 2003 and was sent back.
Next month 1,600 Chinese troops will join exercises with Russia and the former Soviet Central Asian republics to cooperate against Islamic extremists.
Chinese security services have also created a pervasive apparatus of informers and deployed new units of black-clad antiterrorist police to patrol around mosques and markets in the cities of Xinjiang.
But the iron-fisted security policy has made more enemies than friends. Extensive travel and interviews in Xinjiang this month unveiled a society segregated by religion and ethnicity, divided by reciprocal distrust, living in separate sections of tightly policed cities.
The same human rights abuses that exist across China - forced labour for peasants, children trafficked to slave as beggars, girls lured into sweatshops - deepen political tensions here and turn young men to violence.
Two western intelligence officers said the Chinese consistently exaggerated Uighur terrorist links with Al-Qaeda to exploit any opportunity to strike at their home-grown opponents. Chinese information was unreliable and no western intelligence service had handed back Muslim citizens to China, they said.
One of the officers said the real concern was that Chinese repression was creating recruits for terrorism.
In recent weeks has come proof that 58 years of Chinese military occupation have crushed significant opposition but failed to win loyalty. Officials have confiscated the passports of thousands of Muslims in a crackdown to break the growing influence of militant Islam.
Police ordered the Muslims to hand in their passports and told them that the documents would be returned only for travel approved by the authorities.
The aim is to stop Chinese Muslims slipping away to join militants in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The decision has inflamed resentment among Muslims preparing to go to Mecca for the annual hajj in December. “Bin Laden, hao [good],” said one angry Muslim, who had been deprived of his passport. “Saddam, hao. Arafat, hao.”
The memory of state violence exercises a powerful deterrent, however. Flying into the border city of Yining, the Chinese airliner descends over dun-coloured mountains into a bountiful valley rich in orchards and farms, home to a mixture of Uighurs, Kazakhs and Russians.
The ethnic Chinese inhabitants of Yining stick to their own districts. It is the tenth anniversary of a time when blood ran in the streets here and bitterness still runs deep.
“I was in the People’s Armed Police when the rebellion broke out in ’97,” said a burly Chinese driver, who proceeded to give a vivid and satisfied account of this barely known massacre.
“For a while we lost control,” he said. “The insurgents got into an armoury, killed our men and seized the weapons. There was chaos. We brought in the army - they changed into police uniforms - and then we got even. The central government ordered us to crush them without any hesitation. Believe me, we did.
“We lost a few people but we killed - I don’t know exactly - thousands of them. These people know our strength. We taught them a good hard lesson.”
Rebiya Kadeer, a Uighur businesswoman and politician now in exile, says she saw a horrific police video of the “good hard lesson” when she went to Yining in 1997 to investigate. It showed unarmed adolescent boys and girls shot dead on camera, their bodies tossed into trucks. A mother and her group of children, aged five or six, crumpled under a volley of bullets. The taped slaughter went on and on, with excited commands and shouts of glee from the Chinese on the soundtrack. Perhaps one of them was the driver.
A subdued hush has now descended on the city. The cold looks from Muslims when a Chinese walked into a shaded cafe near the main mosque told their own story. He left sharply.
Today the clash of civilisations resounds loudest in Kashgar, 2,400 miles west of Beijing, a crossroads of religions, commerce and culture. In January, only 48 miles to the southwest, “antiterrorist” units raided a training camp in the mountains where the old Silk Road winds into Pakistan, and killed 18 men with the loss of one policeman.
The clash was hailed by the state media, which called it a blow to the East Turkestan Islamic Movement. But Chinese residents said the operation was bungled, allowing militants to escape.
“They made a mess of it and those people are still out there. We know they have many smuggled weapons,” said a retired military officer, “so now our side is distributing arms to trained men in the bingtuan.”
He was referring to the gigantic army-controlled companies that built up Chinese economic activity in Xinjiang and still dominate its business.
“All cars travelling south from Kashgar must have an armed escort along a section of the road through the desert,” said a local tour operator.
China has invested billions of yuan to modernise Kashgar, renovating the square in front of its principal mosque and building new hotels to accommodate backpackers and upmarket western tourists. It has also imported thousands of ethnic Han Chinese to populate new apartments, a pattern of mass immigration used across Xinjiang.
They dwell in effective segregation from the Muslims, who keep to their old quarters of mud-brick houses, mosques and reeking alleys where freshly killed sheep hang up for sale.
The communist party does its best to achieve integration through politics. According to the Kashgar Daily, 84% of local members are Uighurs.
“Good relations are only on the surface,” said a Chinese businesswoman. “They’re not real.”
Loud-mouthed Chinese tourists strut around the precincts of the great Id Kah mosque, reclaimed only at prayer times by the Uighur men who sit outside and stare at them sullenly.
In 1949 the Uighurs were 90% of the population of Xinjiang. Today they account for less than half.
“It is the classic colonialist model,” said Nicholas Bequelin of Human Rights Watch, author of a critical report on Xinjiang.
In Urumqi, the industrialised capital city of Xinjiang, there was evidence that repression had united Uighurs with rival Muslim sects. A red banner hung from the eaves of a 100-year-old mosque, whose lines recalled a classical Chinese temple and whose congregation were members of the Hui, a Muslim minority from central China. “All pilgrimages to Mecca must be organised by the National Islamic Organisation under the law,” it read.
“They have taken all our passports too,” said an elder at the mosque.
“We Muslims must follow the party and the government to make our prayers in a stable setting and under a correct policy,” the imam warned his flock at Friday prayers.
Chinese intelligence woke up late to the fact that Hui Muslims were being financed by extremists from the Middle East.
Their clerics, influenced by Saudi Arabia’s purist Salafi doctrine, often fulminated against Israel and the West.
“The Hui are much more radical than the Uighurs,” said Bequelin. Such radicalisation is fuelled by injustices endured by many Chinese but all the more potent when suffered by an angry minority.
South of Kashgar, an almost medieval system of forced labour, known as the hasha, continues to exist on plantations, where local Muslims are ordered to pick almonds and fruit for sale to the thriving markets of China.
The government denied it, but several people in Kashgar said their relatives were engaged in such unpaid work, and a fruit wholesaler in Urumqi admitted that it still went on.
The practice dates from the era of Khans and slave traders and was supposedly abolished after “liberation” by the Chinese communist party.
Then there is outright child slavery, exposed last month in a brave report by the Hong Kong magazine Phoenix Weekly. More than 4,000 Uighur children have been kidnapped and turned into beggars or thieves by “big brother” Fagin figures, an estimate confirmed by the provincial welfare office.
The gangmasters, usually Uighurs themselves, set daily targets of up to £50 for stealing or begging, on pain of beatings. The children are sent to richer parts of China, the girls subjected to sexual harassment and the boys tempted into drug addiction to make them easier to manipulate.
Almost as bad is the plight of hundreds of Muslim girls conscripted from desert villages and sent for “work experience” in factory sweatshops. Last March Chinese officials went into the dirt-poor villages around Yarkand, south of Kashgar, to collect more than 200 girls as young as 15 for a work programme.
The girls found themselves labouring long hours in a factory more than 1,000 miles from home on the east coast of China. Their promised wages of £33 a month went unpaid.
Several girls escaped and made their way back to Xinjiang. Chinese officials then threatened their relatives with punishment.
The other families fear that their daughters will drift from factories into prostitution, a frequent refuge for the penniless migrant female in China.
In a traditional Muslim society that fears shame and values dignity, such a fate can be seen as worse than death. It is a powerful incentive for the militants.
All over Xinjiang, China can point to growing prosperity, cleaner water, new schools, paved roads, modern hospitals, efficient airports, cybercom-merce and huge energy plants.
The price, say Uighurs, is the slow extinction of their identity. Their children take compulsory Chinese lessons. Teaching in Uighur is banned at the main university. Their fabled literature, poetry and music are fading under the assault of karaoke culture. Their history is rewritten.
For western tourists, who come to Xinjiang to roam the ruins of the Silk Road, the Chinese have erected a new museum in Urumqi. It portrays the final Chinese conquest of this harsh territory, first claimed by the Han emperors in the era before Christ.
The slick exhibits equate its 9m Uighurs with the 4,900 Tartars, 11,100 Russians and 14,500 Uzbek inhabitants.
“All cooperate as one family under the glorious nationality policy of the party,” an inscription in Chinese characters proclaims.
To the family of Ismail Semed, however, it stands for grief, not glory.
Additional reporting: Sara Hashash
Bloody history of Xinjiang
Xinjiang province is crossed by the centuries-old Silk Road trade route once travelled by Marco Polo
1949 Conquered by Chinese communists
1990s Shootings and bombings against Chinese targets
1997 Massacre of Muslims in border town uprising
2001 China joins war on terror, extradites and executes militants
2007 Crackdown continues to sustain oil and gas, building boom and gold rush
Population About 20m — 45% Uighur Muslims, 40% Han Chinese. As many as 45 other minority nationalities, including Kazakhs and Mongols, officially recognised
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to Mike, Oxford, UK,
We Chinese had pubklished paper and silk books more than 2000 years ago. If you count books recorded on turtle backs and dinosour bones, our publication date back to 5000 years B.P., when you people were still monkeys jumping among trees in the jungle.
That is how I knew real history and gained my wisdom and knowledge.
YinYang, Beijing, China
All countries have their way of dealing with differences, minorities etc ... Rather than being polite racists, I think Chinese are very open and generally discuss this sensitive topic openly.
I find the topic interesting and so do the Western Media.
Joe Zhao, Urumqi, Xinjiang
It's all about money. Who has it and who wants it. Southeastern PRC is awash in it, and Northwestern PRC wants some of it. There is no doubt in my mind that everyone contributing to this discussion has spoken truth's, but as an American living in the boom-belt of China, my observation and guess is that the have nots want their share of the economic pie and the central government is going to make sure they get some of it.
TM, Marshall, TX USA
Yin yang you are really tipical chinese(because chinese say every thing belong to china). But sorry you don't know nothing about history. You just read chinese published books. How can you know real history?
Mike, Oxford, UK
Jim,Wellington,
only across the border,Afghanistan,Irak etc the West is showing how to opress and destroy....
Look at peacefull CHINA,is Peace a problem for you?
duke_w, Shanghai, CHINA Peoples Republic
To Kaiser, in Sweden,
I admire your courage tying comments in Sweden. You just showed what kind of people you people are to the world. If you have the guts, take arms to fight Chinese soilders, not blowing up buses and homes in both Xinjiang and Beijing. By the way, are you still using your Chinese passport? or you went to Sweden by your MU passport? shame on you...
To Both whites and muslim extremists.
A kind reminder, Saddam and Bin La din were both raised up by the West to fight the West's enemy. As you can tell, these people (Kaiser of Stockholm, Sweden, alike) are not cuddling beasts. They will bite their masters, once they grow up. Our Western masters, on the other hand, are not stupors themselves, as you can tell from what's happening to Saddam and his fellows in Iraq and Afganistan.
I sincerely hope you two guys get along well forever. Bible and Koran are the same book; the only difference is that one descended from the wife's kid, one from a maid. why killing each other?
Yin yang, Beijing, China
To Jim Wellington,
Your comments:
"They are not fighting the unseen West as the idiots who blow themselves up in London. Instead they are fighting (if it is indeed they who blow up buses) those they see as oppressors in their own land"
Remind you: some of those who blew themselves up in London were born and grown up in UK.
So according to your logic:
London bombings were justified?
Suicide bombings in Iraq and Afghanistan were justified?
It would be justifiable if American indians, Australia Aborigines . . . in their own lands?
Your logic is extreme and dangerous!
Luo, London, UK
Hello Han Chinese people, you sad foreigners must ask han Chinese about Xinjiang, but who you era? Esatturkistan-Uyghurie is not han Chinese peoples land! That’s Uyghur`s land – The people of MU , UYGHUR`S are Citizen of MU.
Hello Chinese have you asked Uyghur`s? The land name is NOT Xinjiang, IS Eastturkistan-Uyghurie. We will be free; we have trust can get back our Mother Land!
kaiser, Stockholm, Sweden
Yinyang is quiet. Yes and westerners are supposed to sit quiet while cultural genocide occurs in XUAR because 200 yrs. ago colonialist/imperialist/racist white men destroyed cultures and people across the globe. That Han chauvinists like Yin and others here make such statements proves how backward many in China are: 200 years backward in thinking. I also want to point out possible western propaganda in the photo essay representations. 1: Slum in Urumqi - Uighur migrants from rural areas live here illegally because they have no official registration 2&5: Armed Special forces day and night on Urumqi streets menace locals (3) but life goes on 6: Uighur bazaar management by uniformed Uighur - usual in XUAR 8: Uighur-Han haggling over prices not necessarily representative of ethnic clash 10: possibly a young trendy Uighur girl (not Han) - not necessarily representative of Uighur-Han culture clash. Photos deceive but dynamics constructed here exist in general throughout XUAR.
Jim, WELLINGTON,
Yin yang's historical ignorance is clear when he says the Uighur came from the West with the expansion of the Muslims. Obviously he has not read his own Tang history about the important role the Uighur played saving an ailing Chinese dynasty. The Uighur are from Central Asia - the Han from the Yellow River basin. To also say Xinjiang belongs to China since the Han dynasty is to say that "territories" China occupied during its Tang colonial expansion also belong to China: right? Following this reasoning Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and parts of Uzbekistan are Chinese territory. How about the Qing grabs: Mongolia etc are these also Chinese territory? Excusing Chinese oppression in Xinjiang because western countries once killed Red Indians, etc. also make one feel quite sick. We revise the wrongs of history in the West - yu perpetrate them into the present. Xinjiang by law is an "Autonomous Region" within China not a "territory" . What does Xinjiang mean in Chinese? please tell us Yinyang.
Jim, Wellington,
Chinese communist party washed all chinese brain . It is uselees discuss anything with these Chinese. Their mind are still in the middle century.
It will takes time to change.
Freeman, USA, NEWYORK
To Michael Ling, Melbourne, Australia,
I forgive your ignorance about China. Your free media will never tell you about this. First of all, Xinjiang is a Chinese territory, not colony. Your British practice of killing American Indians does not actually apply here, without even mentioning what the Brits did in Scotland, India, Iraq and so many other places. A knowledgeable Brit acknowledges these.
In addition, as several of previous comments pointed out, Han Chinese lived in this region long before Uighur migrated in from the west with the Muslim expansion. Who invaded who? The hatred the west has toward Chinese communist should not change history, if you go by your moral standards. The scale of brainwash that the “free media†in the west are doing on the people is astonishing. By the way, I lived in the “free world†for 10 years; I know what it is about.
Yin yang, Beijing, China
Dear Mr. Yinyang. Terrorists are those who did things in London. Uighurs who do such things in Xinjiang do it because they do not accept claims such as yours. That is, they dont believe in your version of imperial history. They are not fighting the unseen West as the idiots who blow themselves up in London. Instead they are fighting (if it is indeed they who blow up buses) those they see as oppressors in their own land they feel they have been robbed of by Communist lies and broken promises of autonomy. They feel colonized and second rate and persecuted for being who they are in the land of their birth. The Han come and laugh. And Jason, really! Thousands killed by Uighur terrorists in Yining? Switch it the other way and it may be more accurate. If it was so the PRC would make that known to the world as propaganda. Of course. Dont believe it. There are some terrible photos and footage available of what also happened to the misguided Uighur youth in those days in Ili
Jim, Wellington,
Wong In Singapore, and the folks from China, are you guys kidding me? Both are obviously kowtowing to the benificient master. Please don't comment on freedom and transparency of anyone when your media's are firmly controlled by the government and you are only ever told the side of the story that they want you to know.
People in China, run a google search for Tianamen Square and see the virtues of the great firewall of China. No links on any massacre, and if for some reason one has slipped passed the censors I wouldn't recommend clicking on it. They are watching you.
We all have histories of shame, yet to deny that our leaders are behaving poorly because others have also behaved poorly is pathetic. It kind of sounds like this, "But, but, the British killed Tibetans first. Mommy, can't we kill Tibetans too?"
They are Watching, Singapore, Singapore
Absolutely fantastic reporting. As an international currently residing in China, it is rare to see such in-depth and nuanced coverage of the complex issues here - particulalry when it comes to Western China and non-Han people. If I read another crap story on bad debt in the state banking system, I'll be sick! Keep up the good work.
Epay, Beijing, PRC
China is a real menace . IThey overran Tibet, occupied XingXiang(East Turkistan), occupied Aksai Chin from India and now trying to annex Arunachal Province and Bhutan. There is a great need to contain China. It is will be a good idea to give logistic and military
help to the Tibetan and XingXiang people thelp them liberate from Chinese occupation.
Sanjay Goswami, Houston, Texas
And I'm supposed to feel sorry for muslims? Well Jimmy crack corn, I don't! I feel sorry for them as human beings living in a corrupt decrepit communist system. But big deal if they're muslims. What about the Christians that have to endure the same if not worse treatment? Where's the crybaby story for them?
Duncan, Grand Rapids, USA/Michigan
How about a report on the atrocites by the Pakistani armed forces on the people of Balochistan. The Balochis are very secualr in their outlook and due to years of discrimination against them by the Punjabi dominated Pakistani elite, the robbing of their natural resources by the Paki elite, and the deliberate policy or reducing the Balochis to a minority in their own land by the Pakistani elite, the Balochis are being increasingly radicalised, resulting in increasing repression by the Pakistani armed forces.
Derek Columbus, New York City, United States of America
Charles F posted: If these were christian or jewish minorities, all hell would break loose and the US congress would be up in arms.
Right now all over the Islamic world, Christians are being murdered, churches burnt, and the survivors given the choice of convert to Islam or leave. A couple of million Christians and Animists were murdered in Sudan by the Islamist government. As for Jews in the ME, there are virtually none left, as they were all forced out, ethnically cleansed, so no "Jewish problem" in Muslim nations. No "right of return" for them either. In this catastrophe for Christians in Islamic nations, there has been no media outcry or Congressional investigations.
The worst was the genocide of Christians and Animists in Sudan, never reported in the West, and an undying shame for the Western media, ever mindful of Muslim sensitivity.
DaveP, Beverley, UK
Michael Ling,
China did learn from "good old" Britain who mugged it for 150 years for just saying no to dope.
Ruslan, Redmond,, WA, USA
East Turkestan has never existed as an independent state, and the area was never ruled by a single Uighur king/khan/beg. Historically each oasis was an independent city state, which had diplomatic relations with one another and with China also. Xinjiang only became a single political entity under the umbrella of PRC rule. This is not to say that indigenous inhabitants don't have an axe to grind with the Chinese, only to point out that the notion of East Turkestan as a Uighur nation is very recent, and that China has a long association with the region.
Michael, Hsinchu,
Good job! Now, how about a report on a subject that is never mentioned in the Western media,i.e, India's treatment of
Kashmiri muslims? How many were killed or tortured during
the 90s? How many Indian muslim were killed during
the pogroms in Mumbai and Gujrat? How about Sikhs who
were mowed down during the communal riots following
Indra Gandhi's assassination? And so on...
Tirmizi, Texas, Texas
PRC gives much to help the Tiebetan and Xinjiang people. We give them roads, schools, railways. Do you know we help them more than Han people ? These people still cause disharmony.
PRC is like a father and the family. If the child cause trouble then the father must punish him. When the child becomes a man he appreciates the father. If China splits there will be much chaos. All Chinese people understand this.
Tibet has been and always will be a part of China ! !! Xinjiang has been and always will be a part of China ! ! !
m gao, san francisco, USA
The Chinese government has a lot to learn from the good old British colonial practice of giving the colonies a high degree of autonomy, set up a police force staffed by the local population and populate the middle-ranking government officials with the well-educated locals. There is a simple term for this: it is called empowerment. The Chinese are far more likely to get stability and support from the minority ethnic groups this way than by brute force.
Michael Ling, Melbourne, Australia
i sense a lot of unproven illogical prejudice in many of these comments, the same ignorance that led to many genocides, internment camps, and aparthied. thats unfortunate
youssuf, baltimore,
Just goes to show that the Chinese can be just as brutal as the Americans.
Adam, London, UK
Of course American and British soldiers are killed by terrorists, but Chinese - by freedom fighters.
elli, Riga,
There is a very good book on this topic: "Xinjiang: China's Muslim Borderland" By S. Frederick. Starr, who is the head of Johns Hopkins University's Central Asia studies program. This book gives a more comprehensive view than this article.
Xinjiang, or the "New Territory," historically known as Eastern Turkestan, is of the size of a sixth of China’s land mass.
However, the Chinese government’s dealings on this Turkic-Muslim region of China's remote northwest borders on formerly Soviet Central Asia, Afghanistan, Kashmir, Mongolia, and Tibet, were considered as controversial by others.
For China and for the rest of the world, the major concern of the argument is: “Will Xinjiang participate in China's twenty-first century ascendancy, or will nascent Islamic radicalism in Xinjiang expand the orbit of instability in a dangerous part of the world?â€
Tony, Sydney, Australia
First, in any olympic, states should put down their weapon. So UK and USA must stop the slaugtering in Iraq before they can be admited to the Beiging game. If they are not happy then put it in a vote & decide by the nations of the world.
Second, China seems to believe everyone have a share in this world,and are treated equally, not sold as slave, not segregated by law etc which was practiced in USA and still practiced covertly in Australia today. It is absurd for European continuing occupying the so call new world, Alaska,Australia, Canada and still have the guts to ask chinese to stay put in the east coast and leave Xinjiang and Tibet. Not too long ago these areas were contested by western power with havoc to the locals. This is the chance for them to catch up rather than going back into that dark age.
Conclusion, this hypocrite have no intention of helping poor nations either in Asia or Africa, he/she is not even happy that China or other is showing sign of doing so.
Frank Liu, Penang, Malaysia
Yes, it's ok to do it in Britain, and the US, but when China is trying to protect it's sovereignty, "oh, they're wrong, they're a communist country, they're evil".
Phillip, De Leon Springs, USA/FL
Cerronnevado of Spain,
You must be ashame to death if you realized that your people wiped out nearly half the worlds culture by sword and cannon from Phillipine to Peru. Tell me where is their own language and culture now when they speak only spanish and practice only catholisim.
Compare to China, the Uighur and Tibetan stil speak their own language and practice their own religion. Except they pick up Mandarin just like those in NewYork and Paris, so what is wrong.
You are shedding crocodile's tear aren't you.
Frank Liu, Penang, Malaysia
From this article, I actually read a totally story. Now I know there are armed militant operating in China. I knew they blew up bus full of passengers in Beijing and other cities. They kills policemen and many Chinese citizens. They get their military training abroad and get supports from other countries.
Tell you something this article did not mention.
If you have ever visit China, any cities, large or big. You can see Uighur trader in every market. Are they invading 'China". No, they are just moving in their countries doing their business and are seeking for their future as everyone in Western country is doing. The author correctly pointed out the economical disadvantages in this area. That is why they migrate, within their own country. No problem. Then is it a problem if Han Chinese moving into Xinjiang province? Does this phenomena accounts for the decline in population of Uighur and increase of Han Chinese in this area?
Ray, Cambrige,
Who are killing innocent Muslims on a daily basis under the banner of "war on terror"? Turn on your TV, even FOX news can tell you.
To Ted Gruen, Dallas, Texas,
"China and Indonesia are the last two great colonialist empires left on earth". Are you out of your mind? How about northern Ireland,Quebec? how about Iraq? Tell me, how many American Indians you guys killed before you declare independence on their land?
Thank you, buffting in London pointed this out:
“Before Christ was born in the Han dynasty, Xinjiang already belonged to China 2000 years agoâ€.
Thank you, cerronevado, Mijas, Spain, pointed out the British killings in Tibet in 1904.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/empire/episodes/episode_74.shtml
It is called a massacre on BBC not my accusation. and you see Tibetan don't like British cololization. they'd rather die.
To all those who believe that Chinese minorities ( are persecuted, please go to XingJiang and Tibet and open your eye to take a look.
Yin yang, Beijing, China
I thought China was supposed to be a "workers' paradise",
where the working man and woman was respected and well treated! Ho ho, ha ha, hee!
The recent slave labour scandals occurring elsewhere in China have been acknowledged by authorities, with charges laid (but NO charges laid with evil party officials who must have allowed the slave labour to occur).
If slave labour and human rights abuses occur in China among ordinary Chinese, imagine how much more likely such abuse is to be perpetrated against a despised minority like these poor Muslims!
China's a flipping cesspool of pollution, corruption, mean spiritedness, and evil, all of which are on the rise, as China rises economically (too bad the slaves and minorities don't benefit).
The planet is doomed.
Bob B., Vancouver , Canada
Looks to me the Chinese have good common sense, what the West lost
sandor, Budapest, Hungary
Maybe I know little about our politics, but I am a Chinese and I can not belive what the news said.I only can say partly is right,but only in partly.
CATMIMI, SHANGHAI, china
British are hypocrite
Wilson, Bloomfield, NJ, USA
Michael Sheridan has given thorough account of what is happening in Xinjiang. His analysis is real and reflects the fact there. I strongly recommend the article to those who are involved in policy making associated with Xinjiang.
As documented by Amnesty international, execution at pre trial stage still takes place in Xinjiang. Many have been arrested simply for the difference in opinion with Central government. It is wrong to execute even jail a person who peacefully expressed his or her opinion. Those who authorized to jail or execute innocent Uighurs should pay the price for committng such a crime.
Many Chinese in China proper are brain-washed by the Central government and can't see through the fact as their eyes are blinded by the communist doctrine. If you are only concerned about the text books minorities get free or a few oppurtunities minorites get, you are simply missing the whole point here.
Michael, Orinda, CA
Tiananmen, Tiananmen, Tiananmen -- Tells you all you need to know about China. How many students was it the soldiers shot dead there?
Da Shan, Beijing, PRC
Yin yang in Beijing has got it right - anyone remotely familiar with Chinese history knows that Xinjiang has been part of China for thousands of years. The Chinese are the only ones who should determine how Xinjiang is run politically. The author of this article is not even remotely familiar with the facts. The bloody uprising in by the Uighurs in the 90s preceded 9/11 by some time and to accuse the Chinese authorities of suddenly using international terrorism or the rise of radical islamists in the province as some convenient out for crushing a righteous nationalist movement is simple nonsense and completely dishonest. Trashing the Chinese by accusing them of colonialist actions in their own country is ridiculous. Let England free the Welsh and the Scots before you take on the Chinese.
Martin, Miami, FL, USA
'Any Chinese or anyone who reads Chinese understand that the banner on the photo says things about figting
government corruption and educating people about corruption. How is that related to China's brutal crackdown on Muslims?'
Yes but Yin yang anyone who knows their Kashgar (about the furthest place from Beijing in China you can get to, at the west end of the Taklamakan Desert) also knows that the statue in the background is a statue of Mao Zedong (although the image has been cropped) - Kashgar's statue of Mao is well known. Why is there still a huge effigy of a man who enjoyed a monstrous personality cult and is the very symbol of repression in Xinjiang? Do you really think the Uyghurs loved Mao Zedong?? That's how the photo relates to the story - it's called irony.
Jane S, Bradford, UK
There are not many choices left when it comes to tackling Muslim extremism.
Extremist Muslims present their cases: they are underdogs, they are denied rights, the world is against them, they are discriminated, they have to indulge in communal riots to get justice, they have to do bombings to counter their genocides (remember Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya and so on) etc. This is an unending list.
Of course, when they are in a majority, there no places for minorities as in Pakistan, Bangladesh and some more places or else it is war between Shias, Sunnis, Kurds and so on.
So China has few options left. Either eliminate Muslim extremists or be fighting them in all fronts. From this angle, Chinese are doing the right thing and setting an example to others.
In 21st century, there should be no place Islamic extremism. It is better if the Muslims handle the grave problems facing non-Muslims or others will have to do them ruthlessly!
Regards,
Krishna R. Kumar, Udupi, India
So what else is new? Israel uses the excuse of a "war on terror" to brutalize the Palestinians with nary a whimper from the West. They just offer more apologies for, and throw more money at, Israel. Especially the Western media. Here in the US, it is forbidden to criticize Israel. Those who have the courage to do so are sacked. Academics are shunned and denied tenure (witness the Finkelstein Affair). Politicians fall over themselves to rationalize Israeli attacks on Arab civilians. Witness the "war" in Lebanon where the West kowtowed to Israel's aerial devastation of an entire nation.
So there is really no hypocrisy in China's actions, at least by Western standards.
Garak, Lutz, FL USA
I hate East Turkestan Islamic Movement as you hate IRA.
I was living in Xinjiang in 1997. One day on my way home I had seen a bus bombed by terrorists.
I don't like this report because it only mentioned "1997 Massacre" but not give a word to the terrorists' massacre in Yili(a district in Xingjiang) in the same year. Uighur gangsters killed thousands of civillian there.Fortunately,My relatives escaped from the disaster.
Jason, Urumqi, China
To Rashelle :
"I am saddened of course by the harsh & murderous treatment of the people Muslims, of X1njiang. But this is China. What else can one epect?
THe tragic fact is that no one in the West would dare to intervene. After all this is china ,getting away with murder & torture on a daily basis."
If you are so touched with suffering of the Muslims, please write a letter to your gov to stop a bloodshed in Iraq. Oil and natural resources are in the hart of problem......
Zoran, Limerick, Ireland
Over 5 decades of communism have destroyed that society beyond repair.It is only natural that now red china wants to damage others.however for as long as the west will look after its own interest the red mob will attack any geniue society.
Jacek Kulikowski, Los Angeles, California
Ignore Yin yang's rhetoric here. As for his/her advice to read some history before commenting, perhaps he should follow his own advice, but you know what they say about Chinese history books... The first Opium War ended in 1842 and the second one ended in 1860, not in 1907 - it's all a long time ago anyway - the article is discussing present day issues, not what the British did the century before last. The British may have invaded Tibet, but they left, while China invaded in 1959 and are still there, having made conclusive attempts at wiping out Tibetan culture, which Britain never attempted to do. Finally, if you don't understand the meaning of Xinjiang being invaded by the Communists in 1949 please refer to www.answers.com/topic/second-east-turkestan-republic as it is all there for you to read (the Wikipedia version is censored in China as is most information on independence movements in Xinjiang). On a final note, it's Xinjiang, not Xingjiang so you need to practise your pinyin.
Sam Gyles, London, UK
This is one of another example of historic events in China that the world knows little about, including several invations and exploitation of China at the hands of Western powers. China has the right to defend itself from terrorism both within its borders and outside. A moderate, reasonable and cautious use of force should be used without crossing the line into oppression.
The Chinese people should never want their goverment's actions to resemble those of the oppressive foreign invaders from China's long history. May God bless both Han and Uighur Chinese as they find peace and blessings together as one nation.
Joshua, Evansville, USA / Indiana
I just want to say this is not true.We Chinese now need stability
,there is no necessary for us to rage the minorities.
ChenSheng, Jinan,
It is a sad depiction of how minorities are suffering in china. However, it is very rare that people of the world hear about what is happening in sinkiang (turkestan) and Tibet. surely these people should have right to self determination as the russian central asian republics had recently.
i suppose might is right because china is strong militarily no one wants to talk about human rights of nations under chinese rule. it is easier to interfere in Iraq than China !
Aéjaz, salford,
Dream on,China is doing its best to edjucate its people amd spends Billions in its Provinces of Tibet and Xinjiang to give all Chinese the same chance.
As for security ; I can walk the streets af China day and night without fear.Can you do that in any city in the UK, NO!!!
Thank you China!!!!
Halina_W, Sganghaai, Peoples Republic of China
Sigh, the anti chinese bias continues in the press.
It seems form the comments here we have some rather definite viewpoints by region - starting from the US we have an extreme anti Chinese mentality - preying on stereotypes (John Hamilton, Washington - "penis soup"). Move onto the UK and Europe, and there is more of a tolerant view, understanding the need for co-operation but naturally still wary. Then as we move to the east we have a greater understanding of localised opinions - instead of listening to the "colonisers" we hear from those who were colonised, and there is hostile element to past history and the hypocrisy of criticizing China now.
How will this all end? Who knows, judging by things here it won't.
Howard, Swansea,
am I the only one who can see that communist china is the biggest threat for the world's democracy?They breake the international law on daily bases w/o any punishment.What the hell is going on?Communism is the cancer of the free world.Wake up!Boycot the olympics!
Jacek Kulikowski, Los Angeles, California
To Oliver Tarrant,
Get your history right.
The legal killing of Aborigines was something encouraged by the British regime in Australia. One of the first acts of the Australian parliament, formed in 1901, was to declare Aborigines human and their killing murder. The British had classified them as fauna.
This 'until recently' was over 100 years ago.
Most Australians are not of English descent. The English dregs you are talking about are the 'sterling' sent to administer the colony, such as Bligh, and contingencies of Redcoats who weren't considered fit to dig latrines for Wellington's army. And of course the ratbags running the Colonial Office in England.
Australians have ever since been trying to undo the genocidal legacy of that low-rent English junta.
Max Fox, Brixton, UK
Dear Yin Yang from Beijing
You called upon the author "to read some history before you speak". So I presume you have read your history too.
You write:
"The british army killed thousands of Tibetan People during their invasion into Tibet from India."
You mean the Younghusband Expedition. It must rank as the least bloody "invasion" for it was carried more with guile and audacity than with arms. I'm not sure what the authorised Chinese Communist Party history books say about it, but even the most critical historians don't make such claims.
Om Shanti
Om Shanti, New Delhi,
china supports terror in indian kashmir state through pakistani terrorists and agents by suppying arms,intelligence etc.china and pakistan are getting their taste of their own madicine.
China is the biggest human rights violator in the world and should be sanctioned for its strocities against its neighbours,its own citizens and the cruelty towards tibetan indipendance movment.
The country which dosen't have democracy have no role in world affairs and should be sanctined heavily.west in its greed for sweat shops cheap goods are in a way encoraging china and its atrocities.
Its high time china tibet should be freed from china and occupied land of kashmir should be returned back to india.shame on china.
Anil Rao, hyderabad, india
It is a well-known but under-reported fact that the so called "war on terror" after 9/11 has become a "war of terror" waged by many regimes against a beleaguered community that today happens to be the muslim one. If these were christian or jewish minorities , all hell would break loose and the US congress would be up in arms. The journalist deserves credit for the thankless task involved in shining a light on the subject. George Bush has divided the world into countries that are "with" the US and "against " it, with no room for variations based on tiresome facts or context. Countries like China are now rightly throwing this dangerous rhetoric back in Bush's face and saying the same back to him. Russia, China, Israel and countless other nations with national/religious minorities to oppress have a free hand, and history will eventually record this as just another pogrom of sorts against today's jews (the muslims), but that's in the distant future.
Charles F., London, UK
China and Indonesia are the last two great colonialist empires left on earth, and China is the last great mercantilist empire. Why does no one protest? Because It suits everybody else who buys the materials & goods produced from their colonialist holdings on the cheap to leave it that way, to forget about the eventual price their children will have to pay and to just not make any waves. The colonized Uighurs and New Guineans will just have to get by and remind themselves of the benefits they receive from being "developed" this way.
Ted Gruen, Dallas, Texas
And you Journalists really have time to travel to these remote places, then why not travel to guantanomo bay and make a special report ??
Too scared of the US ?? Or is it not part of the US order ??
Tom, London, United kingdom
If you say the Chinese intelligence service is unreliable. So how reliable is the American intelligence ?? Weapon of mass destruction in Iraq, found any yet ??? And people quickly point fingers at China, then why not look at guantanomo bay ??? The US arrest anyone they like or terrorist suspects, torture them.
If people say China is taking advantage of the war on terror for ethnic cleansing purpose then what about the US ?? war on terror for oil in middle east ???
I just wonder why the western news hardly report anything about guantanomo bay or the US acts in the middle east, yet they are doing a good finger pointing jobs at China.
I don't understand why western media always do this kind of things about China, digging up things, fabricating stories and facts to undermine China. Is the european media working on the order of the american government ?? Ask yourself : How many Muslims did the west kill in the past ???
Tom, London, UK
China treats people who want to split away harshly. I am noty sure that all Uighurs reject Chinese rue. Only a minority I think.
What would any other country do, just let them go? I don't think so.
The Yining uprisging was not secrect, it was reported at the time. I know cos I heard about it.Maybe the full story didn't come out but t was known to be a major incident.
There as a bus bombing in Shanghai in the 90s.
Interestingly, th Uighurs and Hui in China are allowed to have 2-3 children. And, in Shanghai at least, the authorities are less harsh with the Muslim street traders and restaurant owners than they are with Han. this is a kind of positive discrimination.
I personally encountered the street thieves you mention. They give all Uighur a bad name--mention Uighurs here and people always say 'thieves". A minority ruin the repuation of the others
Kev Lax, Shangai, China
This is further proof of the world wide conspiracy to rid the world of Muslims. It really is a 'world war against Islam'. Muslims better wake up and stop killing each other and more importantly, stop using 'terrorism' as a tool...
Mohammed, London, UK
When Hispanic kids are taught English in America, it is voluntary; when Uighur Chinese were taught Chinese,
they are compulsory. For GOD's sake, if you bother taking a look at the picture, the banner is writen in both Mandrine and Uighur language!!! All official documents and road signs are bilingual. Aren't you slapping your own face with your "evidence"? Fortunately, most of your readers know neither Mandrine nor Uighur language.
When You and your friends invaded Iraq for oil, killing thens of thousands of innocent people, that is legetimate and that is for God's sake of "building a democratic Iraq" and "developing a peaceful Middle-east". when China takes oil from its own land, it "is waging a propaganda and security battle to guarantee its control over Xinjiang".
When people blew up the London subway, they are terrorists; when they blow up buses and homes in Urumqi and Beijing, they are fighting for democracy and their national" identity.
You people make me sick!!!
Yin yang, Beijing, China
i like the way in your chronology you depict the conquering of Xinjiang by China began in 1949 as if before this place was independent. Before Christ was born in the Han dynasty Xinjiang already belonged to China 2000 years ago.
buffting, London,
only 100 years ago, British army invaded China to force Opium trade to dope Chinese in order to "balabce the trade deficit". The british army killed thousands of Tibetan People during their invasion into Tibet from India.
I don't understand why they are this shameless? Can you tell me?
meng, guangzhou, china
A Chinese critique of British empire cruelty citing atrocities in Tibet is extremely rich.
Jon, Jersey,
I don't know too much about this but what leapt out to me when reading this article was its anti-Chinese bias. I think us Brits should look at our own short-comings before prattling on about other nations. One comment I did agree with is that China should not have been given the Olympic games, given what they stand for. That said, they should not have been given to London too.
Bob, London, UK
everybody act up!
Elect a president or prime minister who will boycott the 2008 Beijing Olympics!
It is never too late. Look at Mr.Francois Bayrou. He "won" the French election by openly boycotting Beijing Olympics!!
Yin yang, Beijing, China
Christians are persecuted and executed in China as well! They're also executed in the arab world! It even happens in some regions of India! A country most people would consider "civilised"
How is it we never read any of Their stories? Not political enough? Not divisive enough??
Gib, UK,
This is an analogy to Human Rights, Democracies and All the High Moral Grounds of the West:
"If your grandfather is a robber and thieves, amass all his wealth through all kind of unsavory means known to mankind like one of the reader here who said including forcing opium on the population" Now after acquiring all your wealth through devious means, you now wants to protect your ill-gotten wealth by changing the rules of the games just because you are more powerful, and now we have to play by new rules. Oh... your lofty ideals about human rights and democracies managed to influence some idealist and misguided people to believed in it and cause their countries innumerous problems.
Look at the subsidies the US and EU are giving to their farming lobbies at the expense of least develop countries whose agriculture industry are ruin by these subsidies.
Where is the human rights, and democracy for this people still suffering from COLONIALISM "divide and rule"
Wong YL, Singapore
Wong YL, Geylang, Singapore
Naleen Lal;
The only valid point you make is that of the Olympics. Indeed a shame they went to China.
Other than that, there isn't much room for negotiations with China at all. China is huge, the world needs China as much as the other way around. They played their cards perfectly right by growing a respectable economy on the sidelines first, without anyone paying considerable attention. Now that they can no longer be ignored or, for that matter, shoved aside or bullied, the Chinese are more confident displaying their way of doing things even if it violently conflicts with Western ideals (so to speak, Guantanamo and the likes haven't helped).
You suggest we bully a country that could destroy half the world with its nuclear arsenal in a touch of a button or simply crash the global economy by selling its immense foreign currency reserves. It cannot be done; we are too late.
Erik, The Hague, Netherlands
More reason to avoid spending tourist dollars there. China is not all bamboo and kung fu - more like tanks to run over the masses, tigers slaughtered for penis soup, and ethnic cleansing on a scale that would make Saddam look like a panda.
John Hamilton, Washington DC,
Interesting comment from Troy Cox. I guess we could expect nothing less from a country inhabited with the Dregs of England and which built itself on the slaughter of an indigenous population - as well as allowing the legal murder of Aboriginals until recently.
Struggle against oppression is not extremism. This is the black/white issue created to confuse the masses.
"Extremists" is just a label put on ones enemies and used to justify brutal imperialism and conquest of land and resources and unjust policies.
Oliver Tarrant, London, UK
Why should the world - including Great Britain - flock to Beijing next year to participate in the most politicaly motivated and manipulated Olympics Games since 1936? The Chinese Government - which despite its trappings of econmic liberalisation is still a brutally repressive one, as is yet again demonstrated by today's article - sees the Olympics as critial for its standing and prestige on the international stage. They should not be allowed to get away with it. An international boycott of the Olympics - ideally led by Great Britain - would focus attention as never before on the massive range of human rights abuses - of which the treatment of the Uighurs is but one - perpetrated by this ruthless government.
D. O'Neill, Farnham, Surrey
The author is naive and would probably ask terrorists to sit down and reconsider shared values, then give them more benefits and fix them up with eco-friendly council housing. With extraordinary renditions, a Chinese approach and a bit of our own methods we'll give'm hell. Muslim extremists will not stop until they establish the Islamic State across the world. The Chinese like the Americans are under no illusions, unlike the author.
Halo DeSantis, London,
Congrats on this article! Many repressive governments are currently persecuting Muslim minorities (in some instances, majorities, e.g.Kazakhstan) under the pretext of fighting terrorism. Even more sad is that there are people in the so-called developed countries who are now justifying such behavior.
Ermin S., Annapolis, MD, USA
Have u ever been to China before? Xinjiang? Tibet?
How can you just sit there and judge other country?
why not watching <Wind That Shakes The Barley> by Ken Loach and thinking of your GLORY history.
Why not coming to china, why not asking the people in china?
U are all welcome and God bless u.
Zhou Yi, Sichuan, China
Any Chinese or anyone who reads Chinese understand that the banner on the photo says things about figting
government corruption and educating people about corruption. How is that related to China's brutal crackdown on Muslims?
Ethic groups, minority enjoy way-better government policy than the majority "Han" people. For minority kids, they don't need to pay for text books in school; Han kids have to. for minority couples, they can have more than one kids, while Han couples can have only one. To the extreme, with respect to sentence of criminals, minority convicts enjoy way loose standards. If you don't even know this, you need more investigation into what you write; If you did know this and simplely choose not to write them, you are at least biased and are trying to mislead the reader.
Yin yang, Beijing, China
As usual, Muslims are extremist just for being Muslim and wanting the rights that everyone else expects and wants fr themselves. Is it any wonder when these are hypocritically denied by 'democrats' that extremism results? I guess all the people who support Chinda would have have been quislings for the Nazis.
simonS, Bolton,
East Turkestan is an orgnization of terror, which is officilly accepted in international society. This orgnization, held for split xinjiang from the main land--china, has done lots of trages to realise its own selfish destiny. All chinese, who love peace and a unsplit nation, cooperate with each other well no matter the other's races, kins and wealth.
george fan , nanjing, china
China may be misusing 'war on terror', but iit seems to me that you are choosing a story about 'Muslims' as it is easier to sell these days.
kachro, London, UK
Forget "Govt. deals & santions, all "real humans" & consumers everywhere on earth should NEVER buy any products from Govts., countries or Companies (or their colaborators) even remotly "involved" in "Justice, Military or human rights" CRIMES ....they are almost certainly corrupt and we need to SHOW them we know!.
And, we must tell all we see to do the same.
B F, Sydney,
To Ying Yang of Beijing. To say we cannot criticise China's current practice because of what happened over 100 years ago is nonsense. And then you have the cheek to bring up Tibet!! China is doing in "Xingjiang" much the same as it is doing in Tibet. Moving the Chinese in to "outvote" the native. It is a form of ethnic cleansing.
But the west needs China's cheap labour, so they will get away with it.
Doug Newell, Glasgow, United Kingdom
Mediums should report truly news, but not like this. It's clear that this article is colorful. For this, I protest this news from Timesonline.
Peter, Suzhou, China
To commit atrocities against muslims in china has nothing to do with etremism. It is story of chinese intolerance to the sensitivites of muslims who are in predominant majority in the provice of Xinjiang. To struggle agains the rights is not muslim extremism. Chinese government should give them autonomy to run their affairs on their own.
B.A. Solangi, Ilford, UK
Surely after 9/11 and subsequent terrorist atrocities perpetrated by Muslim extremists, it should be clear that Muslim extremism must be fought. I'm not sure if the Chinese government's approach is necessarily the best one, but I can understand their fears.
Troy Cox, Melbourne, Australia
Xinjiang is an integral part of China.
Ramu Ramsingh, Delhi, India
Brits have the least credential to critisize Chinese communists over human rights. only 100 years ago, British army invaded China to force Opium trade to dope Chinese in order to "balabce the trade deficit". The british army killed thousands of Tibetan People during their invasion into Tibet from India.
I don't understand why they are this shameless? Can you tell me?
Xingjiang was part of China long before England had Scotland, what do you mean by saying "1949 Conquered by Chinese communists "?
Read some history before you speak.
Yin yang, Beijing, China
Some of the issues raised in this article, repression and abuse of power, have not changed for centuries, going back to the dynasties and this also applies to the Han ren intolerance for ethnic minorities, notwithstanding the fact that the province being reported on is one of five "Autonomous" regions. These factors are not directly the result of the government system since the revolution but more ingrained in the history and culture of China. That being said, since the revolution, religion has not been condoned by the state so all of the foregoing, combined with the fact that policy is set by Beijing but enforcement and interpretation are done locally, is going to result in the potential for over extending one's remit.
As for all these "passport" holders, I would be inclined to believe that it's their houkou card that's being pulled.
C Lee, Shanghai, PRC
Interesting to note that the Hui are identified as being more radical than the Uighurs as they are far more widespread within China than the Uighurs. The article says they are from central China, but they concentrate largely in Ningxia province - a dusty northern province through which runs the Yellow River. They can also be found in large numbers in Qinghai, Gansu and Xinjiang, but they are found in large numbers all over China, with large communities in Beijing and even Shanghai and almost any other large city; many cities have their 'Huizu Qu' or 'Hui Minority area', which can be picked out by the number of mosques and the aroma of lamb kebabs. Jinan has one and so does Hangzhou as do other towns.
They differ from the Uighur in that the Uighurs are of Turkic extraction and are physically Central Asian in appearance (sometimes blue-eyed), while the Hui are descendants of Silk Road traders that intermarried with Chinese so they far more closely resemble the Han Chinese.
Donald Smith, London, UK
Stories like these are prevalent in many parts of China. These are stories that have been documented in China for many, many years now. It seems like that the Western world is willing to let economic incentives dictates their policies on China. Why is George Bush forcing democracies in Middles East and not in China? Especially since China regularly violates it own citizens human rights. A government that was a result of the struggles of their citizens. I alway believed that we should block China's admission into the WTO, World Bank, IMF, and other international trade and non-trade organization. We should not support governments that violate their own citizens freedom. China should not be allowed to host or participate in any international games. It is sad that China is given the chance to host the next summer olympics. Olympics started in democratic city-states of Greece and to have China host the next summer olympics goes against all the values of games.
Naleen Lal, Union City, California
I am saddened of course by the harsh & murderous treatment of the people Muslims, of X1njiang. But this is China. What else can one epect?
THe tragic fact is that no one in the West would dare to intervene. After all this is china ,getting away with murder & torture on a daily basis.
But I am glad & appreciative that your paper brought into the open.
Rashelle N, lake forest, U.S.A. Il