Word: uighurs
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...government flooded the city with thousands of police, who detained at least 1,400 people, mostly Uighurs. During an official tour for Chinese and foreign journalists, the fear and anger of both the city's Han majority and Uighur minority were palpable. A 65-year-old Han man originally from China's central Henan province said he retreated to his second-floor apartment as a mob of about 50 Uighur youths attacked a Chinese car dealership nearby. "We spent more than a day inside our house," said the retired farmer, who declined to give his name. "We were too terrified...
...Things nearly turned even worse. Shortly after noon on July 7, groups of Han in their hundreds, then thousands, began mobilizing in the northern parts of the city. Armed with knives, hammers and staves, they marched toward Uighur districts in the south of Urumqi, apparently intent on retaliation. Security forces massed to prevent the Han entering the Uighur areas. The mobs would congregate and sprint to one area, then retreat and run in another direction. Tear-gas canisters exploded through the alleyways. Though there were rumors of Uighur deaths, the huge security presence managed to restore a semblance of order...
...Fear and Loathing Many Uighurs complain that they have become second-class citizens in their own homeland. Government authorities limit the numbers of Muslim Uighurs allowed to go on pilgrimage to Mecca and handpick clerics to deliver politically approved sermons at Friday prayers. Teaching of the Uighur language, which is written in the Arabic script, has been curbed so that Uighurs can more easily assimilate into the wider Chinese society. Yet Uighurs say that they are discriminated against by Chinese companies that operate in Xinjiang. They face restrictions on their travel abroad and even within China itself; repeated stories...
...protests, a charge he has strongly denied. This time, official media said the unrest in Urumqi was fomented through Internet social-media sites and online forums by members of the World Uyghur Congress (WUC), a group based in Washington, D.C., and particularly by its head, Rebiya Kadeer. A controversial Uighur entrepreneur who moved to the U.S. in 2005 after being jailed for five years by the Chinese, Kadeer told TIME: "I have nothing to do with the demonstrations. I reject the Chinese accusations. They are doing it to cover their own actions. The demonstrations started peacefully, and some [Uighurs] were...
...Uighurs, who are Muslim and of Turkic origin, are the single largest ethnic group in Xinjiang. But over the years, their culture has been threatened by a steady influx of Han Chinese. The result: resentment and unrest. The past decade has seen bombings by suspected Uighur separatists and crackdowns by the Chinese authorities. At the time of last year's Beijing Olympics, an attack in the Xinjiang town of Kashgar killed 17 Chinese police officers. But the region's most serious outbreak of violence took place in its capital, Urumqi, over three days beginning July 5, when rioting left...