Word: uighurs
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Mutallip was killed by police "because he was too powerful, too influential," claims an Uighur man in his 30s. "Any Uighur who gets to that kind of position will always be arrested." Like many residents of Khotan - the Xinjiang province city is called Hetian in Chinese - the man was clearly anxious not to be seen talking with foreign journalists. He says he knows Mutallip's family, who had told him that several hundred people tried to enter the hospital where Mutallip died but were blocked by police, sparking a melee...
...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...
...visit to the region this month, TIME talked to Khotan farmers, impoverished jade hunters, shopkeepers, students and professionals. Many of the Uighurs' stories are similar. They say that the government discriminates against them in areas ranging from job opportunities to issues such as the teaching of the Uighur language, which has been heavily curtailed, and the issuance of international passports, which Uighurs now say has been halted until after the Olympic Games in August. (An official surnamed Wu at the Foreign Affairs Department in Khotan said he wasn't aware of such a policy.) Some Uighurs, who are a central...
...There's one big difference between Tibet and Xinjiang, though: Islam. China's critics say the Uighur's faith has allowed them to be demonized by Beijing since 9/11 in a way that is dangerous both to race relations at home and to their image abroad. "It's a systematic Chinese policy to portray Uighurs as splittists and terrorists," says Rebiya Kadeer, a businesswoman who now heads the Uyghur American Association and is the leader of an exile movement seeking greater rights for her roughly 9 million compatriots who live in Xinjiang. Kadeer was once a rich businesswoman in Xinjiang...
...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 aircraft in an attempt to bring...