Uighur Protests Result in 140+ Dead

I know this isn't what you come to my site for, but this situation will probably get much less press coverage than it deserves.

This isn't on most Americans' radars, so a little background may be called for.  Xinjiang Autonomous Province in western China has long been the home of Turkic peoples, most numerous being the Uighurs.  As the BBC puts it, "China re-established control in 1949 after crushing short-lived state of East Turkestan."  The vast majority of Chinese people are from the Han ethnic group and since 1949 the communist government has been relocating Han people to this region in an effort to establish a security buffer.  Again according to the BBC, about 45% of Xinjiang's residents are now Uighur and 40% are Han people.

As you might expect, many Uighurs are unhappy with the current arrangement and some separatist groups have formed, which the communist Chinese government disapproves of, to put it mildly. 

The Uighurs detained at Guantanamo have been the victims of an odd situation.  IIRC they were picked up outside of China and that government believes, perhaps rightly, that they were engaged in separatist activities.  However-- and I think everyone agrees about this-- the Uighurs detained at Guantanamo were doing nothing against the United States.  These detainees can't go back to China, yet politicians here have refused to take any of them and our allies have stated that, if we won't take any, they won't either.  The world doesn't lack for cowards.

The current uprising was sparked by a Uighur/Han dispute at a factory outside Xinjiang.  You can read the details at the BBC or CNN, but the Uighurs are saying that protesting students were fired up by the police and the government is claiming that the protestors were rioting.  Now, press reports say that anywhere from 140 to 600 people are dead.

Comments

[Stephen]

Yeah, about those press reports...

[Stephen]

Er, that didn't work too well.

http://rationalitate.blogspot.com/2009/07/urumqi-update-death-toll-and-media.html

[withrow]

Yahoo is saying that Chinese state media is also reporting that 1434 arrests have been made in connection with the protests & violence:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090707/ap_on_re_as/as_china_protest

Stephen, I agree that there are problems reporting this event, but I'm unsure what you think might be wrong about the reports. If the facts on the ground made the Chinese government look better, I'd think they'd fall over themselves to bring foreign reporters in to look at the scene, instead of shutting down Twitter and mobile phones.

[withrow]

"Officials say 156 people - mostly ethnic Han Chinese - died in Sunday's violence. Uighur groups say many more have died, claiming 90% of the dead were Uighurs."

The officials are in a better position to gather info, but they're also motivated to shape the news in a way that helps the government (which is largely Han Chinese.)