Word: bequelin
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...CCTV and Xinhua is consolidated in the hands of the party. When Li Congjun, head of the Xinhua News Agency and chief organizer of last week's event, noted during the summit that "there is some misunderstanding" that Xinhua was a "traditional media organization," Human Rights Watch researcher Nicholas Bequelin said he thought Li was preparing to be unusually candid about the party's role in news coverage. Instead, Li went on to describe Xinhua's extensive multimedia offerings. (See pictures of the making of modern China...
...spoke to the crowds gathered in the city center on Thursday in an attempt to prevent further violence. "To a large extent it seems that the protest (Thursday) was peaceful. If the government starts to respect the rights of people to demonstrate peacefully, we welcome this," says Nicholas Bequelin, a Hong Kong - based researcher for the NGO Human Rights Watch. "But it shows the ongoing tensions and distrust that reign in Urumqi...
...Uighurs. Those seem to be the only policies Beijing is willing to contemplate. Yet this strategy has left Uighurs feeling trapped and desperate, says Alim Seytoff, a WUC spokesman: "If we speak up, we get killed. If we don't speak up, we will be wiped out." Nicholas Bequelin, a China researcher for New York City - based Human Rights Watch, says that a sense of helplessness - and hopelessness - drives the Uighurs to demonstrate: "They knew the terrible consequences of protesting for themselves and their families and yet they went out anyway...
...Given the level of desperation, says Bequelin, "the government needs to ask itself why it faces such opposition in ethnic areas and consider very seriously changing those policies." Otherwise, Xinjiang and similar regions like Tibet might prove inhospitable for all. The retired Han farmer in Urumqi says his faith in Xinjiang's future has diminished. "It's been developing really fast," he says. "But now I don't know. We've never had this before...
...Chinese government in Xinjiang that has reduced Uighurs to second-class citizens in their own homeland. If we speak up, we get killed. If we don't speak up, we will be wiped out as a people in a few decades" by Han Chinese immigration and forced assimilation. Bequelin said the feeling of helplessness and desperation conveyed by those words gives a strong indication of the forces driving the Uighur protesters. "You could say they were suicidal," Bequelin said. "They knew the terrible consequences of protesting for themselves and their families and yet they went out anyway...