Laura Cereta
07-06-2009, 11:13 AM
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Reporting from Beijing -- China's worst ethnic violence in years broke out Sunday in the northwestern city of Urumqi, leaving 140 people dead and more than 800 injured, the state news agency Xinhua reported.
The unrest pitted Uighurs, a long-aggrieved Muslim minority, against the Han Chinese, who increasingly dominate the far-flung Xinjiang region. With the death toll climbing over the course of the day, the violence appeared to be far deadlier than that last year in the Tibetan region.
Images from the city of 2 million showed flames raging from overturned cars and black smoke billowing over downtown.
Urumqi was virtually closed down today, with vehicles barred in much of the city, telephone lines and the Internet down.
Chinese bloggers wrote that at least one bomb exploded during the incident and that about 100 public buses were destroyed.
The Chinese government accused Uighur exiles in the U.S. of masterminding what was described by state television as a rampage of "beating, smashing, robbing and burning."
But representatives of the Uighurs, a Muslim minority, countered that they were holding a peaceful demonstration that turned ugly because of government brutality.
"Under Chinese law, we should have the right for a peaceful protest against what the Chinese government is doing to our people," Dilxat Raxit, a spokesman for the World Uyghur Congress, said in a telephone interview from his home in Sweden.
He described the incident as the most serious unrest in Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang region, where 8 million Uighurs live uneasily among the majority Han Chinese.
Witnesses reported that riot police arrived on the scene in armored personnel carriers, dispersing the crowd with water cannons and tear gas, and firing warning shots into the air.
At least 300 people were reported to have been arrested and 828 injured.
The trouble began shortly after 3 p.m., when about 300 Uighurs held a sit-in at People's Square. Later, thousands of Uighurs began marching. By nightfall, riots had spread throughout the city, concentrated around the traditional market area known as Erdaoqiao.
More @
http://i649.photobucket.com/albums/uu212/2059911/lat_logo_inner.gif (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-china-protest6-2009jul06,0,2443462.story)
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-china-protest6-2009jul06,0,2443462.story
Reporting from Beijing -- China's worst ethnic violence in years broke out Sunday in the northwestern city of Urumqi, leaving 140 people dead and more than 800 injured, the state news agency Xinhua reported.
The unrest pitted Uighurs, a long-aggrieved Muslim minority, against the Han Chinese, who increasingly dominate the far-flung Xinjiang region. With the death toll climbing over the course of the day, the violence appeared to be far deadlier than that last year in the Tibetan region.
Images from the city of 2 million showed flames raging from overturned cars and black smoke billowing over downtown.
Urumqi was virtually closed down today, with vehicles barred in much of the city, telephone lines and the Internet down.
Chinese bloggers wrote that at least one bomb exploded during the incident and that about 100 public buses were destroyed.
The Chinese government accused Uighur exiles in the U.S. of masterminding what was described by state television as a rampage of "beating, smashing, robbing and burning."
But representatives of the Uighurs, a Muslim minority, countered that they were holding a peaceful demonstration that turned ugly because of government brutality.
"Under Chinese law, we should have the right for a peaceful protest against what the Chinese government is doing to our people," Dilxat Raxit, a spokesman for the World Uyghur Congress, said in a telephone interview from his home in Sweden.
He described the incident as the most serious unrest in Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang region, where 8 million Uighurs live uneasily among the majority Han Chinese.
Witnesses reported that riot police arrived on the scene in armored personnel carriers, dispersing the crowd with water cannons and tear gas, and firing warning shots into the air.
At least 300 people were reported to have been arrested and 828 injured.
The trouble began shortly after 3 p.m., when about 300 Uighurs held a sit-in at People's Square. Later, thousands of Uighurs began marching. By nightfall, riots had spread throughout the city, concentrated around the traditional market area known as Erdaoqiao.
More @
http://i649.photobucket.com/albums/uu212/2059911/lat_logo_inner.gif (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-china-protest6-2009jul06,0,2443462.story)
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-china-protest6-2009jul06,0,2443462.story