Word: separatists
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...authorities evidently believe there is cause for concern. In recent weeks Beijing announced it had foiled a separatist plot by Uighurs to kidnap athletes at the Olympics, and made scores of other arrests. But increased pressure may have already backfired. Residents and activist groups outside China say that since Mutallip's death, Khotan and surrounding areas have been roiled by protests involving a few dozen to nearly a thousand demonstrators. "The demonstrations are indicative of the widespread dissent in Xinjiang's Uighur community and how quickly that dissent can become explosive with only a little agitation," Elizabeth Van Wie Davis...
...rise to an official 40%, a figure that is much higher if millions of undocumented migrant workers are included. That massive immigration has transformed the north of the province, effectively establishing a Han majority and helping to turn what might have been a base for a festering separatist problem into a race-relations issue. Just as Inner Mongolia, now 70% Han, has been Sinicized, so too are Xinjiang and Tibet being flooded with Chinese arrivals. In Tibet, the migration has been assisted by a $4.1 billion railway completed in mid-2006 that connects Beijing to Lhasa...
...anger evident in Kadeer's comments has been exacerbated in recent months. On three occasions - most recently on April 10 - officials in the Chinese capital have announced that security forces foiled planned attacks by what they called Muslim separatist groups from the province. Details were scant but the most recent announcement alleged that some 45 Uighurs in the provincial capital of Urümqi had been arrested in raids that uncovered plans to kidnap athletes and others attending the 2008 Beijing Olympics. An earlier report alleged that a young Uighur woman had tried to smuggle a bomb aboard a commercial...
...confined to Tibet. There have also been rumblings in the far-western Xinjiang province, populated largely by the Uighur Muslim minority group. Protests by hundreds of Uighurs over religious issues were reported by rights groups in late March. The Chinese press has meanwhile reported several recent clashes with separatist rebels in the province, and in early March the press reported that a Uighur woman had attempted to bring down a domestic passenger jet with a homemade bomb. Add to that widespread discontent over issues such as corruption and rapidly worsening inflation (the price of pork has gone up two-thirds...
...think those 'East Turkestan' separatist groups have been planning terrorist attacks on the coming Olympics for a long time," said Li Wei, Director of the Center for Counter-Terrorism Studies at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations. "The number of these terrorists is very small, and they think the Olympics is a perfect opportunity to magnify their influence with the attention of world media. It is natural that they would intensify their attacks as the games draw closer...