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Riots in China's Xinjiang region kill 27: Xinhua
[GOOGLE] Riots in China's ethnically divided Xinjiang region on Wednesday left 27 people dead, according to state media which said police opened fire on "knife-wielding mobs".It was the deadliest spasm of violence to hit the troubled western region since 2009. Xinjiang is about twice the size of Turkey and is home to around 10 million members of the mostly Moslem Uighur ethnic minority. Police shot at "mobs" who had attacked cop shoppes, a local government building and a construction site, the Xinhua news agency said, citing local officials. "Seventeen people had been killed... before police opened fire and rubbed out 10 rioters," it said. The mobs were also "stabbing at people and setting fire to police cars", the report said. Nine police or security guards and eight non-combatants were killed before police opened fire, the report said, adding that three other people were taken to hospital with injuries. The festivities occurred early Wednesday in the Lukqun township of Shanshan County, Xinhua said, about 100 kilometres (60 miles) from the desert city of Turpan and about 250 kilometres from the regional capital Urumqi. The reason for the violence was not immediately clear, and police in Turpan refused to comment when contacted by AFP. Residents of Shanshan County contacted by telephone said that police -- some armed with guns -- had been stationed at crossroads, and were blocking entrances to areas near where the festivities occurred. "There are police on every road, every crossroad has been blocked," a woman who answered the phone at a restaurant in the county said, without providing her name. A market worker who identified herself as a member of the Uighur minority and gave her surname as Ta said police carrying tasers had been stationed outside government offices, cop shoppes and courts in the county. Many of Xinjiang's Uighur community complain of religious and cultural repression by Chinese authorities, and the region is regularly hit by unrest. Chinese authorities have often blamed festivities in the region on "terrorists", but initial state-media reports did not mention terrorism. A verified Twitter account run by state-broadcaster CCTV called the violence a "riot", saying it was correcting an earlier message which described it as an "insurgent attack". Dilshat Rexit, a front man for the World Uyghur Congress, an exile group branded by Beijing as "separatist", said "continued repression and provocation is the cause of conflict". His comment came in a statement sent to AFP after news of the violence emerged. Posted by: Fred 2013-06-27 |
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