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Death Toll in Xinjiang Violence May Be Higher Than Reported At Least 50 Killed in Xinjiang Violence, Officials Say
(about 7 hours later)
BEIJING — Violent clashes last weekend in the Xinjiang region of western China killed and injured a higher number of people than state media had reported, witnesses and Western news media have indicated in recent days. BEIJING — The Chinese authorities provided new details on Thursday about a violent clash in the Xinjiang region of western China last weekend that they said had left 50 people dead and more than 50 others injured.
Citing local officials and residents, Radio Free Asia, which is funded by the United States government, said on Thursday that more than a dozen people had been killed — including three police officers — and around 100 wounded in the violence, which took place on Sunday in three towns in the southern county of Bugur, known as Luntai in Chinese. According to the government-run Tianshan website, a series of bomb blasts on Sunday killed six people in Luntai County, southwest of the regional capital, Urumqi. Security forces later fatally shot 40 people whom the report described as rioters. Four police officers were also killed, the report said.
On Monday, the Xinjiang government’s Tianshan website said two people had been killed and referred to the episodes as “explosions.” “Public security dealt with the situation decisively,” the article said, quoting local police officials. It described the episode as a terrorist attack.
Witnesses told Radio Free Asia that crowds of ethnic Uighurs in the town of Yengisar, angry over forced mass evictions to make way for Han Chinese migrants, had raided government offices and a police station. The police station was later bombed by the Uighur attackers, the report said. Previous reports in the state news media had said the violence in Luntai County claimed just two lives, and it was unclear why the authorities had waited five days to disclose further details.
A man who picked up the phone at the Luntai County morgue on Thursday confirmed the higher death toll. “On Monday, there were over 30 family members coming to collect the corpses,” said the man, who refused to give his name and did not specify the number of bodies. The newest report, released late Thursday night, said the attack had been organized by Mamat Turson, a laborer who it said harbored “religious extremist” views. Although the article did not describe the suspect’s ethnic identity, his name suggests he is a member of the region’s Uighur minority.
Posting to her Sina Weibo microblog, a local student wrote on Monday: “Now, no matter what hospital you go to in Luntai you see the people injured from yesterday’s blast.” As with much of the bloodshed in Xinjiang, outside groups offered a starkly different version of events. Radio Free Asia, citing local officials and witnesses, said the violence had begun after residents angry about forced evictions raided government offices and a police station in Luntai, which is also known by its Uighur name, Bugur. At some point, the report said, assailants lobbed explosive devices at the police station.
The Chinese government blames foreign-backed terrorists, religious extremists and ethnic separatists for a wave of violence in Xinjiang that has killed more than 200 people in the past year. “I assume there are about 100 people with injuries, because all the hospital beds are occupied right now,” Radio Free Asia quoted a nurse as saying. The news service, which is based in Washington and financed by the American government, employs Uighur-speaking reporters.
Uighur activists and international human rights groups say that intrusive Chinese restrictions on religion, language and culture, as well as state-sponsored ethnic discrimination, have radicalized the Uighur population. The Radio Free Asia report said the injured included 20 police officers and at least one person suspected of being an assailant.
On Tuesday, a court in the regional capital sentenced a Uighur academic, Ilham Tohti, to life in prison for separatism, drawing international condemnation. As evidence against Mr. Tohti, prosecutors said he had discussed Uighur frustrations in his classroom, run a website devoted to Uighur issues and spoken with foreign journalists. Court documents said he had “exploited foreign forces to create pressure to make Xinjiang an international matter.” “On Monday, there were over 30 family members coming to collect the corpses,” said a man who answered the phone at the Luntai County morgue and who declined to give his name.
Rohan Gunaratna, the head of the International Center for Political Violence and Terrorism Research at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, disputed the Chinese government’s claims that all violence in Xinjiang is the work of terrorists. In a microblog post on Monday, a local student wrote, “Now, no matter what hospital you go to in Luntai, you see the people injured from yesterday’s blast.”
“Most of the incidents, including attacks, are spontaneous,” he said. “They’re not planned and directed.” Mr. Gunaratna added that China’s focus on economic development in Xinjiang had failed to address longstanding ethnic grievances. “Beijing has invested in building infrastructure but not in creating reconciliation,” he said. The episode was the latest outbreak of violence in Xinjiang, a vast expanse of desert and mountains that has been flooded with Chinese security forces.
Government officials have blamed religious extremists for the increasing bloodshed, which has killed more than 200 people in the past year. The region is the traditional homeland of China’s Uighurs, a Sunni Muslim, Turkic-speaking minority who have chafed at Beijing’s iron-fisted rule since Communist troops ended a fleeting experiment with independence more than six decades ago.
Uighur exile groups and international human rights advocates say the government often exaggerates the role of foreign-backed Islamists. They blame official restrictions on religion, language and culture, as well as mounting discrimination, for radicalizing a growing number of Uighurs.
Rohan Gunaratna, the head of the International Center for Political Violence and Terrorism Research at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, said much of the recent violence in Xinjiang consisted of spontaneous acts of resistance by disaffected Uighurs. “Beijing has invested in building infrastructure, but not in creating reconciliation,” he said.
Although the report on the Tianshan website on Thursday was short on details, it described the violence as a well-organized “terror attack.” It said explosive devices had been set off in several locations in Luntai, including at a farmers’ market, in the doorway of a shop and outside two police stations.
The blasts killed six and wounded 54, a mix of Uighurs and Han Chinese, the nation’s dominant ethnic group. The report said that the police had responded by fatally shooting 40 people, and that two of the assailants had been arrested.
The article cast Mamat Turson, accused of being the mastermind of the violence, as a religious extremist who had refused to eat at the home of his parents, described as public servants, because they refused to cook halal food. “He didn’t even attend his father’s funeral or participate in his brother’s wedding,” the report said.
Mamat Turson, it added, was among those killed in the attack.