Uighurs rally to mourn Xinjiang dead

I posted here with regards to China and how it issues with regards to the Uighur community and in particular what may happen if this Islamic group start to make a noise.

Well China seems a little quiet right now but the Uighur community in Kazakhstan have come out in screaming support.

Hundreds of Uighurs rallied in Kazakhstan's largest city Almaty on Thursday to mourn those who died in violent clashes in the neighboring Xinjiang region of China last month and to call for its independence.
Kazakhstan is home to the largest Uighur community outside China. About 500 people, many wearing the blue badges with white crescents of the Uighur independence movement, gathered at a mosque for a traditional ceremony.

In Xinjiang's worst ethnic unrest in decades, Uighurs staged protests in the regional capital Urumqi on July 5 following a clash among migrant workers at a factory in south China that had led to two Uighur deaths.

The Urumqi violence left 197 people dead and more than 1,600 wounded, mostly members of the China's ethnic Han majority, according to Chinese authorities.

Han Chinese launched revenge attacks on Uighurs in Urumqi days later. About 1,000 people, mostly Uighurs, have been detained in an ensuing crackdown by security forces.

Han migration into Xinjiang, home to Muslim Uighurs who speak a Turkic language and whose culture has strong links to Central Asia, has helped fuel the conflict.

"What is our goal? We want an independent state," Kakhraman Khodzhaberdiyev, a vice president of the U.S.-based World Uyghur Congress, told the Almaty meeting.

"The current autonomy (of Xinjiang) is not real and we demand that its status be changed as a first step."

Another Uighur community leader, Abdulla Ushurov, attacked what he said were Chinese attempts to portray Uighur protests as purely criminal riots.

"You cannot say that a group of people just started crushing everything," he said.

"These are being described as criminal acts but it is a century-long fight for independence."


Also worth noticing that the police in neighboring Kyrgyzstan, also home to a significant Uighur minority, detained two Uighur leaders after a similar rally this week, saying it had not been given official permission.

This is starting to grow now..........it may end in tears.

Uighur Unrest

I posted this last Wednesday.

I thought that the Chinese crack down on Uighurs may spill into a situation that China is not well versed for handling with the utmost of sensitive natures.

Well reports in the Telegraph this am make me think it may well be stepping up a bit.

I quote:- Chinese police arrest more than 300 in Urumqi
A further 319 people, the majority Uighurs, have been arrested in the Chinese city of Urumqi in connection with race riots that left almost 200 dead at the beginning of July.

The arrests, according to the state-run Xinhua news wire, came a few days after 253 people were rounded up. A further 1,000 suspects were detained in the immediate wake of the riots.

The Uighurs are a local Sunni Muslim minority that the Chinese government blamed for much of the violence in the far Western city.

"Every suspect, without any exception, will be arrested and punished according to the law to root out any hidden danger," Xinhua said.

This may well get very messy as the marginalised Islamic community feel again more persicution. However I feel the way China handle things means the issues may occur here. We may find local Chinese businesses etc in the West being the target for Islamic retribution.

I hope I am very very wrong.

Islamic Riots in China????

The Ranting Penguin posted this a few weeks ago when the Uighur situation was at its height and a few riots were kicking off in China.

Please see here.

Well he may be not too far from the truth if this story is to be believed.

Now I have no way of proving this 1 way or the other.

China is world renowned for its lack of tolerance and its somewhat dubious human rights.

But my point being, right or wrong once this story has been pumped into the hands of a few fundamentalists, and few islamic chaps get the words bent a bit, can you see the Chinese allowing a bit of home grown terrorism to spring up?

Well with their record of dealing with a few protests in the past, and the methods they employ, that would make some interesting stories now would it not?

I think someone is stoking the fire a little, and it might get messy.